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THE AMPHITHEATER AT ARLES AFTER THE RE- 
MOVAL OF MOST OF THE HOUSES FROM THE 
ENCLOSURE 



THE GRAND TOUR 

IN THE 

Eighteenth Century 



BY 



WILLIAM EDWARD MEAD 

IVith illustrations ^ 
from contemporary prints 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

fCbe Uliteritfibe "^xtii Cambribge 

1914 



Co>^4^ 



^ 



lien 



COPYRIGHT, 1014, BY WILLIAM KDWAKI) MKAD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



tCji: ; 



THIS FIRST EDITION CONSISTS OF 
THREE HUNDRED COPIES OF WHICH THIS IS 



DEC -b 1914 



•CI.A 387985 



TO 

K. C. M. 

JVho makes every journey a joy 



PREFACE 

The subject presented in the following pages has been 
strangely neglected; for until recent years there has been 
little attempt to treat comprehensively and in detail one of 
the most significant chapters in the social history of England 
in the eighteenth and earlier centuries — the tour in foreign 
countries for the sake of education. The materials are 
abundant, — indeed, embarrassingly so, — but they have 
never been systematically utilized. As a rule, the whole 
matter has been disposed of by historians in a paragraph 
or two. The more detailed studies have mainly dealt with 
the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. M. Babcau's 
delightful sketch of Lcs Voyageurs en France covers about 
three centuries, but is limited to a discussion of travel in one 
country. Yet few things had a more far-reaching influence 
upon the life and thought of Englishmen than the grand 
tour, which permitted them in the most impressionable 
period of their lives to survey other lands, other types of 
society and government, and to carry home something of 
the best — and too often of the worst — that the Continent 
had to offer. 

In a subject so limitless in its possible range there is 
obviously much for which we cannot afford the space. The 
original intention was to trace the growth of English travel 
on the Continent from the time of the Revival of Learning 
to the outbreak of the French Revolution. But owing to 
the appearance of Mr. Bates's Touring in 1600 this extensive 
programme was modified to deal, in the main, with the grand 
tour in the latter half of the eighteenth century, with an 
occasional glance at the travel of an earlier generati(Mi. It 
is, perhaps, hardly necessary to remark that the present 
book is in no sense a systematic guide to eighteenth-century 
Europe, and that it attempts no extended account of any of 

vii 



PREFACE 

the countries visited on the grand tour. In so far as places 
are mentioned or described, they are included because they 
mark important points on the routes commonly followed 
and illustrate what eighteenth-century tourists saw, but of 
course not all that they saw. 

To write about the grand tour is, indeed, very much like 
writing about things in general, since there is an endless 
multitude of possible topics to be included. Practical neces- 
sity compels the exclusion of material which is in itself both 
interesting and suggestive, but which, if presented in de- 
tail, would obscure the features essential to a comprehensive 
survey. For this reason we must limit our view to the re- 
gions chiefly visited on the grand tour — France, Italy, Ger- 
many, and the Low Countries, with a mere glance at Spain 
and Switzerland and other parts of Europe. But Denmark, 
Norway, Sweden, Russia, Hungary, Greece, Turkey do not 
come into our plan, not because they were in themselves 
unimportant in the eighteenth century, but because they 
were less commonly visited by English tourists than some 
other parts of Europe. There is, moreover, in this rapid 
sketch little attempt to dwell upon places of secondary inter- 
est, but emphasis is laid upon the most representative cities 
on the great routes. For our purpose the towns of the 
Continent are significant only in proportion as they at- 
tracted English tourists. 

As for the materials used in the preparation of this book, 
some of them are enumerated in a bibliographical note. But 
it may not be improper to remark that in repeated journeys 
and a residence of several years on the Continent I have 
become familiar with practically every important place 
visited on the grand tour and have endeavored by actual 
observation of old roads and mountain passes to realize the 
conditions under which one traveled in the generation pre- 
ceding the French Revolution. Amid the wilderness of 
error that abounds in the older books of travel, I cannot 
safely pretend in every case to have hit upon the exact 
truth, but at all events I have not deliberately aimed to 
increase the mass of misinformation already in print. 

viii 



PREFACE 

In conclusion, I offer my sincere thanks to the officials of 
libraries in this country and abroad for the facilities which 
they have generously placed at my disposal, and without 
which this book would be far more imperfect than it now is. 
To my colleague, Professor George M. Dutcher, I am much 
indebted for a revision of the second chapter; to Mr. Archi- 
bald Cattell, of Chicago, for a careful reading of the proof 
sheets ; and to my wife for proof-reading and aid in preparing 
the index. 

In view of the great war that is now devastating Europe, 
it is important to note that the corrected page proofs of the 
present book were returned to the printers a few days before 
the outbreak of hostilities. 

W. E. M. 

October i, 1914. 



CONTENTS 

I. Introductory i 

II. Europe before the French Revolution 5 

III. Water Travel 

I. the ENGLISH CHANNEL ... 29 

II. FRANCE 32 

III. ITALY 33 

IV. GERMANY 37 

V. HOLLAND AND BELGIUM • • • 39 

IV. Roads 

I. Introductory . . ... . 43 

II. FRANCE 44 

III. ITALY 46 

IV. GERMANY 49 

V. THE LOW COUNTRIES . . . . 5 1 

V. Carriages 

I. FRANCE 52 

II. ITALY 61 

III. GERMANY 68 

IV. THE LOW COUNTRIES . . . -12 

VI. Inns 

I. Introductory 75 

II. FRENCH INNS 78 

III. ITALIAN INNS 84 

IV. INNS IN GERMANY .... 95 

V. THE INNS OF THE LOW COUNTRIES . lOO 

VII. The Tourist and the Tutor . . , 103 

xi 



CONTENTS 

VIII. Some Dangers and Annoyances . . .140 

IX. The Cost of Travel . . . ,170 

X. The Continental Tour: France and Spain 207 

XI. Switzerland and the Mountains . . 255 

XII. Italy 269 

XIII. Germany . . . . . . . 335 

XIV. The Low Countries 364 

XV. Contemporary Comment on the Grand Tour 375 

Bibliographical Note 463 

Index 471 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Amphitheater at Arles after the Removal 
of most of the houses from the enclosure 
(p. 243) Frontispiece 

From an old engraving. 

A French Port 30 

After a painting by Joseph Vernet. From "Institutions, 
Usages and Customs of the Eighteenth Century,'' by Paul 
La Croix 

The Grand Tournament of the Boatmen of Paris 
IN 1 75 1, between Pont-au-change and Pont 

Notre-Dame 32 

From an Eighteenth- Century print. 

The Water Journey from Padua to Venice — 
The Remulcio towing the Burcello . . 34 

From Edward Wright's "Observations," 1730. 

A Ferry on the Po 36 

From Edward Wright's "Observations," 1730. 

On a Dutch Canal in Winter . . . .40 

From "Holland," by Nico Jungman. 

A Diligence 54 

From "La Locomotion," by 0. Uzanne. 

The Duomo and the Baptistery, Pistoia . .110 
From a photograph. 

An Interrupted Journey 144 

From "Les Brigands," by Franz Funck-Brentano. 

A Collection of Ancient Artistic Treasures . 204 

From Samuel Foote's "Dramatic Works." 
xiii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Crowning the Bust of Voltaire at the Theatre 

pRANgAis IN 1778 216 

From " Letters, Sciences and Arts in the Eighteenth Century" 
by Paul La Croix. 

London in Holiday Attire — The Lord Mayor's 
Procession 218 

From Hogarth's Industry and Idleness, 1747. 

The Gardens and West Front of the Palace 
OF the Tuileries at the End of the Eight- 
eenth Century ^ 222 

From " Travels from Hamburg to Paris,'' by Thomas Holer oft. 

South Side of the Roman Triumphal Arch at 
Orange, dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius . 242 

From a photograph in the Boston Public Library. 

Roman Temple — The Maison Carree at NImes . 244 
From a photograph in the Boston Public Library. 

Regatta on the Grand Canal, Venice . . 294 

From a photograph in the Boston Public Library of a paint- 
ing by Antonio Canaletto 

Mausoleum of Theodoric at Ravenna . . 332 

From a photograph. 

Towing a Vessel up the Rhine — the Town and 
Castle of Hammerstein in the Background . 354 

From " The Rhine," by Thomas Cogan. 



The Old Town and Canal - 


- Hamburg 


. 360 


From a photograph. 






A Macaroni 


• • • 


. 396 



From "English Costume," by George Church. 

The Coliseum 400 

From a print by Piranesi in the second half of the Eight- 
eenth Century. 



THE GRAND TOUR 
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



THE GRAND TOUR IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

It is hardly necessary to remark that extensive foreign 
travel was nothing new to Englishmen of the eighteenth 
century. Journeys to Rome were not uncommon in the 
time of Bede, and, as Chaucer incidentally remarks, the 
long and hazardous pilgrimage to Jerusalem was thrice 
accomplished by the Wife of Bath, who unquestionably 
had no lack of companions. Many women before the four- 
teenth century had actually made that journey. The pil- 
grimage to Compostella in Spain was made by vast throngs 
in the Middle Ages. Voyages of discovery in all parts of 
the world had already become common in the reign of 
Elizabeth. Migration to America took tens of thousands 
of colonists across the Atlantic in the seventeenth century. 

In comparison with these perilous ocean voyages the 
tour of the Continent of Europe, though by no means easy 
or entirely free from danger, was a mere pleasure trip, 
and Englishmen of rank had long been accustomed to 
make it. Mr. Sidney Lee well says: "The value of 
foreign travel as a means of education was never better 
understood, in spite of rudimentary means of locomotion, 
than by the upper classes of Elizabethan England. All 
who drank deep of the new culture had seen the wonders 
of the world abroad." ^ In another place he remarks: 
"Throughout the century young Englishmen of good fam- 
ily invariably completed their education in foreign travel 
and by attendance at a foreign university. In many quar- 
ters the practice was deemed to be perilous to the students' 

I 



INTRODUCTORY 

religion and morals. The foundation of Trinity College, 
Dublin, in 1592, was justified on the ground 'that many 
of our people have usually heretofore used to travel into 
France, Italy, and Spain, to get learning in such foreign 
universities, whereby they have been infected with popery 
and other ill qualities.'^ But the usage of youthful pere- 
grination was barely affected by such suspicions. The 
young Englishman's educational tour often extended to 
Italy and Germany as well as to France, but France was 
rarely omitted, and many youths confined their excursions 
to French territory." ^ 

After the reign of Elizabeth the stream of travel to for- 
eign parts, in spite of occasional interruption by Conti- 
nental wars, continued to flow ; and what came to be known 
as "the grand tour" ^ attained in the eighteenth century 
a more widely diffused popularity than it had ever before 
known. Ever since the Renaissance the tide of travel — 
particularly to Italy — from various countries of Europe 
had ebbed and flowed. But in the eighteenth century 
what had been a few generations earlier a matter of extreme 
difficulty, and even danger, became relatively easy. An- 
noyance and privation might still be expected here and 
there, but not in sufficient measure to deter one in tolerable 
health from the undertaking. 

This growing interest of Englishmen in foreign countries, 
especially France and Italy and the Low Countries, and, 
to some degree, Germany, was due to a multitude of causes : 
to the centering of attention upon the Continent by the 
War of the Spanish Succession and other conflicts, to 
the popularity of French fashions notwithstanding the 
traditional hostility to France, to the greater perfection 
of means of transportation, to the increase of foreign com- 
merce, to the rapidly growing wealth and broadening out- 
look of Englishmen, and to the multitudinous attractions 
of the Continent — social, artistic, architectural, literary, 
historical — which were sufficient to draw tourists of every 
taste, whether for enlarging their stock of knowledge or for 
mere pleasure. 

2 



INTRODUCTORY 

The grand tour was, at least in intention, not merely a 
pleasurable round of travel, but an indispensable form of 
education for young men in the higher ranks of society. 
When made in approved fashion, in the company of a 
competent tutor, the grand tour meant a carefully planned 
journey through France and Italy and a return journey 
through Germany and the Low Countries. It was com- 
monly necessary, on the way to or from Italy, to cross a 
portion of Switzerland, or at least some of the mountains 
belonging to the Alpine chains, but this part of the journey, 
in so far as the mountains were concerned, was regarded 
as a disagreeable necessity. Such a tour usually required 
three years. Multitudes of independent travelers, un- 
hampered by a tutor or by anything besides their ignorance, 
of course visited the Continent without attempting the 
conventional round, and many pupils traveling with a 
tutor spent no more than a year or two abroad, but the 
allowance of three years was not too long for a leisurely 
survey of the principal countries and for getting some prac- 
tical acquaintance with foreign languages. 

Those who traveled abroad belonged, as a rule, just as 
was the case in the sixteenth century, to a picked class, 
and with their aristocratic temper, their wealth, and their 
insular characteristics, they presented, along with marked 
individual differences, a well-defined tourist type. The 
traits of successive generations of English travelers upon 
the Continent were early combined to form the well- 
known Englishman of the Continental stage — a carica- 
ture, indeed, but one reproducing many features drawn 
from life. Even in our time the old type is not altogether 
extinct, and may be occasionally encountered in a railway 
carriage or at a mountain inn, but it is daily becoming 
more rare. 

Our main theme is, then, the touring of Englishmen upon 
the Continent of Europe in the eighteenth century. Prac- 
tical considerations of space, as well as the actual practice 
of all but an insignificant fraction of tourists, compel us 
to limit our view to France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, 

3 



INTRODUCTORY 

the Low Countries. But this limitation has the advantage 
of permitting us to view in more detail the field that we 
undertake to survey. 

We must not forget in any part of this discussion that 
not merely in England but throughout Europe the tutorial 
system was the generally approved method for the educa- 
tion of young men of qualit}'', and that what was in all 
essentials the grand tour was made under the guidance of 
a traveling tutor by the scions of noble families of France, 
Germany, Holland, and other countries of Europe. Travel 
was regarded as an essential finish of one's edi^cation, 
whether one traveled alone or with a tutor. The fashion 
of travel once established, it often tempted men, and even 
women, of mature years to undertake extended journeys. 
The itinerary, of course, varied somewhat according to 
personal tastes and special needs, but in general the regions 
visited by tourists bom on the Continent were substantially 
the same as those that attracted Englishmen. 

We see, then, that wide travel for education or for pleas- 
ure was in no sense peculiar to Englishmen, — although as 
a class they were best able to aflord the expense, — but 
rather a conformity on their part to a practice that had 
become traditional among the upper classes of Europe — 
"that noble and ancient custom of traveling, a custom so 
\'isibly tending to enrich the mind with knowledge, to rec- 
tify the judgment, to remove the prejudices of education, 
to compose the outward manners, and in a word to form 
the complete gentleman." ^ 



CHAPTER II 

EUROPE BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 



From what has already been said, it is clear that the 
grand tour, with all that it impHes, forms an important 
chapter in the history of European culture, and that it 
must be studied from that point of view if it is to be more 
than a merely curious record of travel in foreign countries. 
Taken in the broadest sense, the grand tour includes every- 
thing that one might see or hear in the course of long-con- 
tinued travel. But as such an extension of the meaning 
would lay upon us an impossible task, we must in the study 
before us impose some well-defined limitations. 

It is obviously no part of our duty to review in detail the 
complicated history of Europe in the eighteenth century. 
We are concerned with the course of events on the Continent 
only in so far as they affected the tourist. But a clear 
understanding of a few fundamental facts is imperative. 
Most important is it to bear in mind that participation by 
the common people in the work of government was rela- 
tively slight in nearly every country of the Continent, and 
only to a moderate degree permitted in England. Minor 
offices might be filled by persons of no importance, and in 
some cases men of humble origin rose to positions of great 
influence, but the policy of the government, the final deci- 
sion in every matter that might affect the welfare of the 
ruling class as well as of the uncounted multitude, was 
commonly reserved for the supreme ruler. It is true that 
despotism became less harsh with each succeeding genera- 
tion, but in theory it was hampered by few restrictions. 
The ruler, with his broad vision of the needs of his people, 
was expected to govern as a wise father governs his family. 

5 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Their interests were supposed to be his. If the ruler was 
both wise and good, the people prospered; but in any 
case they were expected to accept without murmuring the 
decisions of their betters. 

As may be inferred, the mass of the population through- 
out Europe was made up of plain and simple folk. For 
the most part they were occupied with agriculture and 
lived a very humble Hfe. Cities were relatively, as well as 
actually, far smaller than they are to-day.^ Manufac- 
turing was attempted on a small scale, particularly after 
the Seven Years' War, but at best it was insignificarft and 
in general not greatly encouraged. As a result, trade and 
commerce lacked incentive, and, moreover, suffered under 
the burden of numberless regulations due to narrow preju- 
dice and imperfect knowledge of the laws governing national 
wealth. Widespread poverty characterized the greater part 
of Europe. 

Particularly notable, too, as a result of the universal ac- 
ceptance of the doctrine of the "Balance of Power," was 
the division of large portions of Europe among nations 
that had nothing to do with the organic historical develop- 
ment of the regions they appropriated. Such was espe- 
cially the case in Italy. 

Into the life of the eighteenth century came the fearful 
upheaval of the French Revolution, which marks a turn- 
ing-point in the history of every country of western Europe. 
The minds of men were themselves transformed — that 
was the Revolution. A thousand conceptions, social and 
political, that had seemed established for ever were at 
length shattered under the long-continued assaults of 
philosophers and political theorists, and systems of govern- 
ment that under manifold differences in externals were 
alike in exalting the personal will of the ruler were sooner 
or later greatly modified. In some cases, as in France, the 
change in institutions was immediate and sweeping; in 
others, as in Germany and Italy, the transformation was 
more gradual ; but in all, the old state of things was doomed. 

The thirty years or so just preceding the Revolution are 

6 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

those that most concern us in this study, though we shall 
often have occasion to look back to the early eighteenth 
century — and sometimes to the seventeenth. 

To reaHze the conditions under which men lived in the 
eighteenth century is not easy. There are, indeed, only 
three or four generations between us and the gay throngs 
that crowded the salons of Paris before the Revolution. 
But the eighteenth century, notwithstanding its nearness in 
time, and the immense mass of information that we have 
about it, appears strangely remote, separated from us as 
it is by the great gulf of the French Revolution. The cen- 
tury of which men still vigorous have known many living 
representatives impresses us as markedly different in tem- 
per and point of view from our own. In a thousand ways 
the difference forces itself upon even the most careless 
observer — in the forms of government, in the rigid struc- 
ture of society, in the fashions of dress, in the popular 
amusements, in the lack of facilities for travel and com- 
munication — in short, in all those particulars which dis- 
tinguish the old, unprogressive regime with its numberless 
feudal survivals from our own bustling, democratic age. 

Looking at the matter from one point of view we may 
say that there is no side of eighteenth-century life that 
might not in some way affect the tourist, but for our purpose 
the problem is much simpler. We need to know something 
of the political systems of the countries visited on the 
grand tour, for to those systems were due many of the 
restrictions laid upon the tourist. We need to know the 
times when peace prevailed, for, obviously, while there is 
war the average man will not undertake a tour, but will 
remain safely at home. We need to know of the means of 
travel, of the state of the roads and where they ran, of the 
inns and how one fared in them, of fashionable society and 
how it impressed the tourist, as well as the impression the 
tourist made upon society : in short, in so far as is possible 
in a book that must touch many things lightly if at all, 
we must endeavor to follow the tourist from place to place 
and see with him some of the sights that most interested 

7 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

him. In this way we may be able in some degree to estimate 
the value of the grand tour as a means of culture. 

Besides all this, it is worth while to note that the eight- 
eenth century, particularly during the first half, was a 
time of depression in poetry and art and architecture, and 
that for a time it appeared to be at a standstill in all moral 
and religious progress. But there was, nevertheless, in 
almost every field of human activity a new spirit stirring 
which wrought an amazing change before the century came 
to an end. 

In view of the immensity of the field, it is obvious that 
to trace in any considerable detail the differences between 
the old time and the new would involve a review of the 
social history of Europe from the time of Louis XIV to the 
present, and to do that here is, of course, out of the ques- 
tion. We can, however, glance at the three or four countries 
that most attracted the English tourist and form some 
conception of the general conditions under which one trav- 
eled in the eighteenth century. 

Of all these countries we must in some measure reshape 
our modem notions if we are to understand what the 
grand tour a hundred and fifty years ago really meant. 
Obviously, each country presented some features not ex- 
actly paralleled elsewhere, and the most characteristic of 
these we must try to realize. But we must remember that, 
owing to the complexity and variety of the facts and the 
frequent changes in details of administration, a general 
statement must ignore many minor details, and in some 
cases must be taken as a mere approximation to the truth. 

II 

As a preliminary to our later study we may well glance 
for a moment at eighteenth-century England, and then at 
the countries commonly visited on the grand tour. Until 
the last decade or two England has been a synonym for 
conservatism. But how different in a thousand ways is 
the England of our time from that of a century and a half 

8 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ago ! In comparison with the England that we know, eight- 
eenth-century England was markedly provincial and insu- 
lar. Until far beyond the middle of the century, English- 
men, though always ambitious and aggressive, had not 
enlarged their conceptions to the point of making England 
the center of a world-power. But they felt with reason 
that their country was the most favored land in Europe, 
and everywhere they went they instinctively claimed pre- 
eminence. 

One inestimable advantage they had enjoyed for nearly 
three centuries. Although since the close of the Middle 
Ages almost every part of the Continent had been a bat- 
tlefield, England, with the exception of the Puritan uprising 
and the futile attempts to restore the line of the Stuarts, 
had been free from war upon her own soil. And by her 
fortunate insular situation she was practically secure against 
attack from the Continent. The period since the Revolu- 
tion of 1688 had been marked by increasing material pros- 
perity, which had diffused habits of expensive living and 
stimulated the desire to see life in other lands. Not every- 
thing was perfect in eighteenth-century England. Great 
inequalities prevailed. Parliament was unreformed. Social 
conditions among the lower classes were pitiful. But while 
there were vice and brutality and misery in eighteenth- 
century England, as everywhere else, nowhere in Europe 
was a man freer to live his own life and to express his own 
views on society, politics, or religion. 

Another fact worthy of note is that the country was 
not overpopiilated. In 1750, England and Wales counted 
6,400,000 inhabitants, and not until the end of the century 
did the population rise to 9,000,000. London in the middle 
of the eighteenth century had something like 600,000 in- 
habitants, — no insignificant number, it is true, but not 
so large as to preclude a man in society from the possibility 
of knowing almost everybody of importance. Naturally, 
then, society was more a unit than it is to-day. Men of 
the upper social class had about the same education — 
not too thorough, but including a tolerable acquaintance 

9 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

with Latin and some knowledge of Greek. Every one who 
wished to shine in society spent a part of his time in Lon- 
don, usually gamed a little at one of the fashionable clubs, 
and from the men of his own class took in the opinions 
generally accepted on politics, morals, and religion. 

A man in such a circle who had not seen Paris, to say 
nothing of The Hague, the Rhine, and, above all, Venice 
and Florence and Rome, could not aspire to be a leader of 
fashionable society. Something provincial, some lack of 
savoir-faire, would inevitably betray him. Sooner or later 
the spell of Italy or France would be upon him, and woisild 
lead him to the places that he must himself see if he would 
be in a real sense a man of the world and in keeping with 
the society in which he moved. 

Ill 

Nearest to England in point of distance was France, the 
leader of the fashions of Europe and the greatest rival of 
England in every part of the world. English commercial 
and colonial expansion more than once brought the two 
nations into conflict in the course of the century. Eight- 
eenth-century France, just before the Revolution, occupied 
a slightly larger territory than the present Republic.^ She 
had not yet gained Savoy and Nice, but she had not yet 
lost Alsace and she had acquired Lorraine in 1766. 

Of the condition of France before the Revolution there 
is so much that might be said that any brief generalization 
is hazardous, for there had come down from the Middle 
Ages multitudes of anomalous special privileges reserved 
for the upper classes, and in this rapid summary we can 
touch only on matters that are most typical and character- 
istic.'^ But a rapid glance at the main features is imperative. 

France presented a strildng contrast to England in gov- 
ernment, in religion, in the structure of society, in habits of 
living, in manners, in dress, — in short, in a thousand details 
that make up the greater part of everyday existence. More- 
over, France, taken by herself, was full of contradictory ele- 

10 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

ments. Standing as she did in the forefront of civilization; 
boasting the most brilliant philosophers and men of letters 
in Europe, her life was throttled by a system of government 
that was daily becoming more inadequate to the demands 
of the time. 

Notable, indeed, were the differences between the gov- 
ernment of France and that of England. The centralizing 
policy of Louis XIV had gradually brought France under 
a system of administration that deprived the provinces of 
political power and made the king's will supreme.^ A 
powerful minister might relieve the king of the burden 
of multiplied administrative detail, and even usurp au- 
thority, but in effect the king was responsible. Yet, 
though nominally absolute, he was in practice restrained 
by a host of precedents and usages, surviving from the 
days of feudalism. 

This centralized authority was in many particulars sadly 
inefficient and could not be bettered without a radical 
reform from top to bottom. The regulation of the finances 
was subject to continual alteration, but the sporadic change 
resulted chiefly in making administration more difficult. 
No head of government, however honest his intentions, 
could bring harmony and justice out of the tangled con- 
fusion of laws that had accumulated in France. Bureau- 
cratic and cumbrous in its machinery, the government was 
at the same time lavish and niggardly. It poured out money 
like water at Versailles and often begrudged the most neces- 
sary expenditures in the provinces. Between 1763 and 
1789 the national debt enormously increased. Dishonesty 
in handling public money was common. Too often, not 
merit but favor brought advancement. 

Moreover, the administration of government was med- 
dlesome in the extreme and constantly interfering in the 
smallest matters. This officiousness was the more exasper- 
ating because apparently irrational and, in any case, not 
applied to all classes alike. Under the old regime France 
was doubtless in many respects a paradise, but only for the 
chosen few.^ 

II 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Next to the king stood at the head of the social order the 
clergy and the nobility. They formed the privileged classes 
and were in the main exempt from public burdens,^ though 
they owned two fifths of all the land in France. In fact, 
if we exclude the public domain from the estimate, their 
possessions amounted to "one half of the Kingdom." ^ The 
clergy and the nobles numbered but a thirtieth part of the 
twenty-six millions in France, but they enjoyed an enor- 
mous proportion of the income of the nation. Not only 
did the clergy hold vast estates, but they also exacted tithes, 
as was their right, and received, moreover, a considerable 
annual income from voluntary offerings and bequests. 
Without question, the Church of France in the eighteenth 
century was, all in all, an institution of incalculable benefi- 
cence as well as of great splendor. But luxury had deadened 
the zeal of earlier days, and too often the Church served 
as a convenient means of providing well-paid sinecures for 
the younger sons of noble families. 

In many parts of France the Church had estranged its 
natural adherents and even embittered its own servants. 
Although it possessed vast estates and enabled the great 
dignitaries to live like princes, the minor clergy were sadly 
underpaid, and in many cases lived little better than the 
impoverished and starving people that they served. In 
eighteenth-century England there was, before the great 
religious awakening of the middle of the century, a prevail- 
ing indifference to spiritual things. But there was no such 
popular hostility to the clergy as was common in France; 
for, particularly after the great religious revival, the Eng- 
lish clergy took a genuine interest in the welfare of the poor; 
whereas in France the higher clergy appeared chiefly con- 
cerned to exact their tithes and to turn over their routine 
duties to ill-paid curates. 

As for the French nobility, they had long since lost most 
of the political power they once possessed as a natural 
right in their own districts; and unless kept at home by 
poverty, they had, with few exceptions, given up living 
upon their estates for the greater part of the year and 

12 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

yielded to the attraction that drew all France to Paris and 
the court of the king at Versailles.^ In their absence their 
estates were managed by agents, who too often were un- 
scrupulous and merciless. 

But although as a class they had lost political power, 
the nobility enjoyed many special privileges and had vast 
influence at court and on the administration of govern- 
ment. Theirs was an unquestioned social position. They 
secured in the army and in the fleet the choicest places, 
which gave them large revenues and little to do. Some of 
the higher nobles had vast incomes from their estates and 
lived in extravagant luxury. But the nobility almost 
wholly escaped taxation.^ They were free from the burden 
of the corvees, of compulsory military service, and of hav- 
ing soldiers quartered upon them. They had the privilege 
of selling their wine in the market thirty or forty days 
before the peasant; they could pasture their cattle in the 
meadows of the peasant ; they could keep a host of pigeons 
that devoured the peasant's grain while he dared not kill 
or take them; they could claim a certain proportion of 
the peasant's grain or wine or fruit; and they could compel 
him to use the seignorial oven for baking his bread. ^ These 
survivals in the eighteenth century appeared increasingly 
irrational, since what had given rise to the privileges was 
no longer in existence. In short, as De Tocqueville re- 
marks: "France was the only country in which the feudal 
system had preserved its injurious and irritating charac- 
teristics, while it had lost all those which were beneficial 
or useful." * 

Moreover, admission to the ranks and privileges of the 
nobility could be secured by men of wealth who had no 
ancestral claims. This upstart aristocracy was despised 
by the ancient noblesse and doubly hated by the toiling 
masses. In England the aristocracy was one of the strong- 
est bulwarks of the constitution and of the social order: 
in France it was a constant source of irritation and disHke 
and an invitation to revolution. 
Below the privileged classes was the great third estate, 

13 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

comprising the merchants, the members of the learned pro- 
fessions, multitudes of men of letters, and, of course, all the 
peasantry, as well as all the working-classes in the towns. 
The members of the third estate were in many cases as 
wealthy, as learned, as polished in manners, as the members 
of the favored classes, but they were not permitted to 
share in the privileges and exemptions reserved by law for 
the clergy and the nobility. And as for the peasants and 
artisans, they were, in the main, simply ignored, even by 
multitudes of those who themselves were counted as be- 
longing to the third estate. ^ 

Upon the poorer classes of France the burdens of exist- 
ence pressed heavily. Throughout the country the lot of 
the peasantry was pitiful, even though the serfdom of 
central and eastern Europe was practically unknown. 
Upon them fell the duty of keeping themselves and their 
families alive, while at the same time they carried the load 
of taxation from which the privileged upper classes were 
mainly exempt. With no opportunity for self -improve- 
ment they became sodden and hopeless. It is true that 
many French peasants, by thrift and incessant toil, had 
accumulated considerable wealth, particularly in land, but 
they were none the less subjected to trivial yet exasper- 
ating annoyances that reminded them of their lack of 
legal equality with their titled neighbors, who were some- 
times poorer than themselves. The country districts were 
shamefully neglected by the government, which drained 
them of money and of men and gave little or nothing in 
return. 

Many of the towns, we may note, were relatively pros- 
perous, particularly in the generation just preceding the 
Revolution, but the small villages and rural hamlets were 
too often wretched collections of filthy hovels occupied by 
half -starved peasants, brutalized by want and by excessive 
toil.i 

How all this affected the tourist is obvious. He found 
little to attract him to the country districts, where the 
miserable condition of the peasantry made comfort difficult 

14 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

to secure, and he moved from town to town with as little 
delay as possible along the route. And whether in town or 
country he could not help reaHzing that something was out 
of joint. Keen observers, like Chesterfield, already foresaw 
revolution. 

Yet the thirty or forty years before 1789 — the very 
years that most concern us — were far more prosperous 
than the first half of the century, and had there been a more 
efficient administration of government and a more equit- 
able'distribution of the burdens of public life, it is possible 
that France would have escaped the horrors of the Revo- 
lution, as England herself did. 

But the average English tourist was no prophet nor a 
very competent judge of the significance of what he saw. 
With the less attractive sides of French life and official 
administration he inevitably came more or less in contact 
as he journeyed across country, but, unless he was a trained 
observer like Arthur Young, he noted only incidental de- 
fects, and those mainly as they affected his personal com- 
fort. Of the deep discontent that smouldered in every 
part of France he hardly suspected the existence, and he 
regarded the schemes for social reform, so popular in the 
salons, chiefly as entertaining speculations that must not 
be taken too seriously. The gHtter and the gayety of 
French society bHnded his eyes. But most of the world 
was blind in those days, and he was but a passing stranger. 

IV 

Of all the countries visited on the grand tour, the con- 
dition of Italy was, from many points of view, the least 
enviable. Her decline was the favorite topic of eighteenth- 
century tourists and poets. There had, indeed, been a sad 
falling-off since her days of ancient greatness. In the time 
of the Roman Empire Italy had been the recognized leader 
of the world, but when the barbarian invasions over- 
whelmed the Empire the country became the successive 
prey of the strongest. The brilliant period of the Renais- 

15 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

sance made Italy for a time the chief center of European 
culture and art. But war from without and dissension 
from within had long before the eighteenth century im- 
poverished the land and left it weak and divided. Says 
the historian of Piedmont: "What Italy really attained 
during the latter end of the eighteenth century was not 
happiness, but cessation from suffering; there was not 
actual progress in Italy, but only a stay in her decline." ^ 
Spain and France and Austria for generations regarded 
Italy as a mere pawn upon the chessboard — a mere make- 
weight to aid in adjusting the "Balance of Power." 

After the middle of the sixteenth century, France in her 
own name figured little in Italian affairs in comparison 
with Spain, but the so-called Spanish Bourbons, who ruled 
a large part of Italy in the eighteenth century, were of 
course really French ; and French ideas and French fashions 
never ceased to exert a marked influence in the peninsula. 
Throughout the seventeenth century the greatest power 
in Italy was Spain, which, indeed, maintained peace, but 
hampered industry and individual initiative by narrow- 
minded and absurd interference. Early in the eighteenth 
century, as a result of the war of the Spanish Succession, 
Austria forged to the front in Italy and assumed the lead- 
ing political r61e. 

It is needless to remark that as yet Italian unity was 
hardly a dream, and that Italy as such had no voice in the 
councils that parceled out her territory among foreign rulers. 
This very fact makes difficiilt a clear understanding of 
political conditions below the surface in Italy in the eight- 
eenth century, since the changes in boundaries and in 
masters were made without reference to the desires of the 
people and the interests of the country, and hence without 
reference to the organic development of the national life. 
Whereas in French or English history the sequence of 
events can be traced in something like logical order, the 
thread of Italian history is so tangled that one has difficulty 
in following any line for a great distance. Where unity is 
lacking, there can be no strict sequence. 

i6 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Into the details of history we cannot here enter, but we 
must glance for a moment at the most important territorial 
readjustments that were made in the course of the first 
half of the eighteenth century, though we must remember 
that it is not easy to make a compact statement covering 
all the details. 

The one fact of greatest moment is that the Italian penin- 
sula, with its population of fourteen millions,^ had no cen- 
tral dominating government, but was split up among many 
different sovereignties. Between 1700 and 1750 foiur trea- 
ties were made which transferred large portions of Italian 
territory from one European power to another. The first 
treaty was that of Utrecht in 17 13, at the close of the War 
of the Spanish Succession. This transferred the Kingdom 
of Naples, which had been Spanish since 1504, from Spain 
to Austria; Sardinia from Spain to Austria; Sicily from 
Spain to Savoy; and the Duchy of Milan from Spain to 
Austria, In 1720 a partial readjustment was made by an 
agreement between Savoy and Austria to exchange Sicily 
and Sardinia. This had for Austria the advantage of giv- 
ing her sovereignty over the adjacent regions of Naples and 
Sicily. In 1 73 8 the Peace of Vienna brought about extensive 
changes. Austria relinquished the Kingdom of Naples and 
Sicily and other bits of Italian territory to the Spanish 
Bourbons and in her turn received Parma and Piacenza, 
whose last Farnese duke had died in 173 1. At the same 
time, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany was confirmed to 
Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine. He had married 
Maria Theresa of Austria in 1736; and hence Tuscany be- 
came to all intents an Austrian possession. But in 1765 
their son Peter Leopold was made Grand Duke of Tuscany, 
and he niled here with practical independency of Austria 
until his election as Emperor in 1790. As a minor matter 
we may add that early in the eighteenth century the 
Duchy of Mantua became a dependency of Austria and 
was made a part of Austrian Lombardy. Lastly, we note 
that, in 1748, at the close of the War of the Austrian Suc- 
cession, Parma and Piacenza were given to a Bourbon 

17 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

prince, and some portions of the Duchy of Milan were 
ceded to the Kingdom of Sardinia. 

Besides the states under foreii::n domination there were 
others that maintained their independence. The States 
of the Church stretched from the RepubHc of Venice to 
the Kingdom of Naples and recognized no master but the 
Holy Father. The Duchy of Modena had little power, but 
it was undisturbed b}' outside aggression. In the midst 
of the Papal domain the tiny medieval Republic of San 
Marino preserved its liberty in its mountain nest. The 
little oligarchy of Lucca kept its autonomy as it had long 
done. The two republics of Genoa and Venice had sadly 
declined, but in their decrepitude they still cherished their 
great past and continued to drag out a sluggish existence. 
In the extreme northwest, Savoy and Piedmont had suc- 
ceeded for centuries in malcing headway against the powers 
that had taken possession of much of the peninsula. When 
Sardinia was exchanged for Sicily in 1720, the Kingdom of 
Sardinia was founded, and included the island of Sardinia, 
the Duchy of Savoy, and the Principality of Piedmont. 
Later additions of territory slightly increased the strength 
of the kingdom, which was destined in the course of time to 
become the dominant power in the Kingdom of Italy and 
to bring about the union of all the scattered sovereignties 
in the Italian peninsula. The French Revolution, followed 
by Bonaparte's invasion in 1796, brought an end to many 
of the complicated arrangements here outlined, but wath 
the later history we cannot now deal. 

In the forty years before the French Revolution Italy 
was in the main free from commotions, though neighboring 
states had " an aversion for each other . . . often increased 
to a marked hatred and contempt. The Genoese, Floren- 
tines, Neapolitans, and Romans," we read, "foster so 
great an odium against each other as was never manifested 
between the English and French." * The rulers of the 
separate states were despotic, as was the case all over the 
Continent, but some of them made considerable effort to 
improve agriculture and industry, particularly in the north- 

18 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

em half of the peninsula, and to put the public finances 
upon a sounder basis. Notably in Milan and in Tuscany 
the incoming of Austrian rule brought a far greater pros- 
perity than had been known for generations. But, as a 
result of the excessive subdivision of the territory of Italy, 
we can easily see that foreign trade and international in- 
tercourse of every sort would be greatly hampered by the 
ordinary and inevitable eighteenth-century formalities at 
the frontiers and at city gates. Moreover, it is obvious 
that a country so divided could have no collective national 
life or spirit. Throughout the greater part of Italy, par- 
ticipation in political life was for most men, of whatever 
rank, an impossibility. Practically all that was left was to 
take up with some occupation of an obviously harmless 
type. 

Under the conditions existing everywhere in Italy no 
man could take pride in the name of Italian. He might be 
a member of an ancient and wealthy family, but, shut out 
as he was from an active career and disdaining any useful 
occupation, he was likely to become an amateur in art or 
music — to spend his days and his nights in dancing at- 
tendance upon some woman who could never be his wife, 
and to fritter away his energy in inane social follies. Civili- 
zation in some parts of Italy, particularly in the southern 
half, seems to have been a thin veneer over ill-concealed 
barbarism, due to causes of remote origin. Even in the 
middle of the nineteenth century, "in Romagna and the 
Marches . . . the blood-feud was custom of the country, 
greatly enhanced by long years of Papal misrule." ^ 

Still, in spite of all drawbacks, portions of the northern 
half of Italy, particularly Tuscany ^ and Lombardy, were 
measurably prosperous. In comparison with these regions 
the southern half of the peninsula presented a marked 
contrast. Speaking broadly, poverty increased in propor- 
tion as one proceeded down through the States of the 
Church into the regions of the extreme South. A sober in- 
vestigator like Tivaroni says ^ that in the Roman territory 
there were no manufactures and no agriculturists. The 

19 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

poor of Rome lived upon the fragments that fell from the 
tables of fifteen or twenty thousand rich foreigners who 
spent the winter there, — upon the cardinals, the Papal 
court and the Roman princes.^ Says an English traveler 
in 1741: "Viterbo, Montefiascone, Ronciglione, and the 
rest of the towns we passed through are all in the same 
miserable condition, tho' in a pleasant and fruitful country: 
We saw ruinous houses and poor people, with fine churches, 
rich clergy, and fat convents." ^ Of Rome itself the same 
writer says: "This City, which was once the mistress of 
all the riches of the then known world, is now so».poor, that, 
to change a pistole in a shop, you must buy half the value 
in goods, and take the rest in several bank notes, each of 
the value of half a crown sterling." ^ He adds, with some 
extravagance, " It is very probable that in a few years both 
the town itself and all the neighborhood may be perfectly 
void of inhabitants, and, like the former Babylon, only a 
haunt of monsters and beasts of prey." ^ 

In the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the great minister 
Tanucci had brought about notable reforms, but the social 
conditions throughout the country districts were substan- 
tially those of feudal times. The peasantry were not only 
desperately poor, but they were illiterate, superstitious, 
hopeless, and such they continued to be throughout the 
eighteenth century, and even long after. More than one 
fourth of the population were ecclesiastics, who had gath- 
ered up a large proportion of the wealth of the country into 
their own hands. 

Even in the middle of the nineteenth century a brilliant 
historian points out in enumerating the reforms that were 
urgently needed: "In no country of Europe was this 
triple revolution more lamentably overdue than in Naples, 
where the tyranny, uncontrolled through long centuries, of 
priest, of noble, and latterly of king, had left marks of 
devastation not only on the welfare of a few passing genera- 
tions, but deep in the national character itself. ..." Re- 
ferring to "the hill towns of southern Italy," he continues, 
"In those miserable abodes of fear, poverty, and supersti- 

20 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

tion, the Dark Ages were prolonged down to the end of the 
eighteenth century, and it was there that the character of 
the NeapoHtan people was moulded." * 

Other features of Italian life will receive attention in the 
proper place, but this rapid sketch is sufficient to make 
clear the general condition of the country that the tourist 
had to traverse. 

V 

Very different from France, and yet in all ranks of polite 
society the persistent imitator of everything French, was 
Germany. The well-informed man of to-day naturally 
thinks of Germany as the greatest military power in the 
world, as the home of the most advanced scholarship, and 
as the formidable commercial rival of England. Far lower 
in the eighteenth century was the international reputation 
of Germany. All through the period we are examining, 
Germany was not a compact nation, but a bewildering con- 
geries of disunited kingdoms and electorates and princi- 
palities and free cities, with one portion — the Electorate 
of Brandenburg — gradually rising to preeminence as the 
new Kingdom of Prussia. 

There is, indeed, no more confused and complicated 
history when taken in detail than that of Germany, for 
where there is no unity there can be no clearly defined 
policy and no general continuity of growth. With the 
historical development of Germany we cannot here deal. 
We have rather to endeavor to form some conception of 
what was connoted by the term "Germany" in the eight- 
eenth century and to indicate the type of civilization it 
presented. 

In the Middle Ages, Germany held a commanding posi- 
tion among the nations of Europe, with wealthy cities like 
Lubeck and Hamburg and Cologne and Nuremberg and 
Augsburg and Frankfort and Mainz and Strassburg and 
Breslau. But Germany at the beginning of the eighteenth 
century had long been declining. The Reformation and 
the animosities it engendered rent the Empire in twain 

21 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

and left a heritage of strife that made Germany a battle- 
field for a generation. Since the Middle Ages no greater 
calamity fell upon any European nation than came to 
Germany with the Thirty Years* War. The ruin of great 
and flourishing cities, the destruction of ancient festivals 
and quaint customs, the brutalizing of the rural population 
throughout a generation of strife, all this left its mark 
upon the Germany that travelers visited in the eighteenth 
century. 

Following the Thirty Years' War came the ravaging of 
the Palatinate in 1688, the War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion, and the Seven Years' War. In these wars much of 
the earlier brutality continued. Prosperous and beautiful 
German cities were laid in ashes and countless villages 
made uninhabitable. 

Already in the seventeenth century progress was sadly 
arrested. Public spirit and public opinion almost died 
out. Bureaucrats and pedants held full sway. It was the 
day of small men and small things. Great centers of 
present-day industry, like Solingen, Essen, Krefeld, Elber- 
feld. Barmen, were in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies too insignificant to deserve mention. 

Even late in the eighteenth century a semi-medieval 
character pervaded the atmosphere of Germany. The 
nobles, particularly in the Rhine districts, were too poor 
to keep up their ancient splendor, but they cherished all 
their surviving privileges and looked with contempt upon 
the peasantry. Throughout the Empire the laboring classes 
were in a far worse condition than in France. "The dwell- 
ers on the estates of the Prussian nobility in Silesia and 
Bra,ndenburg were treated no better than negro slaves in 
America and the West Indies. They were not allowed to 
leave their villages, or to marry without their lords' con- 
sent; their children had to serve in the lords' families for 
several years at a nominal wage, and they themselves had 
to labour at least three days, and often six days, a week 
on their lords' estate. These corvees or forced labours 
occupied so much of the peasant's time that he could only 

22 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

cultivate his own farm by moonlight. This state of abso- 
lute serfdom was general in Central and Eastern Europe, 
in the greater part of Germany, in Poland and in Russia, 
and where it existed the artisan class was equally depressed, 
for no man was allowed to learn a trade without his lord's 
permission, and an escaped serf had no chance of admission 
into the trade-guilds of the cities. Towards the west a 
more advanced civilization improved the condition of the 
labourers; the Italian peasant and the German peasant on 
the Rhine had obtained freedom to marry without his lord's 
interference; but, nevertheless, it was a prince of western 
Germany, the Landgrave of Hcsse-Cassel, who sold his 
subjects to England to serve as mercenaries in the American 
War of Independence. In France the peasant was far 
better off." i 

Besides all this, there was everywhere prevalent in Ger- 
many a narrow spirit of particularism, an inability to see 
the world from any other point of view than that of one's 
own limited district. Taken as a whole, Germany was inert 
and unprogressive, feudal in spirit and practice, and every- 
where divided against itself. Even where neighboring states 
lived peaceably side by side, as for the most part they did, 
there was marked lack of interest in one another's welfare, 
and a lack of concerted effort toward a common end. 

And this contracted, illiberal spirit is precisely what 
might have been expected from the rulers and the subjects 
of the petty states that constituted the moribund German 
Empire. Already, before the dawn of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, the Empire, with its ten circles, — including some 
three hundred separate states, of which fifty-one were free 
cities, — was little more than a name. "Properly, indeed, 
it was no longer an Empire at all, but a Confederation, and 
that of the lowest sort. For it had no common treasury, 
inefficient common tribunals, no means of coercing a re- 
fractory member; its states were of different religions, 
were governed according to different forms, were adminis- 
tered judicially and financially without any regard to each 
other." 2 

23 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Since the Thirty Years' War the Empire had so lost all 
directive power that it left the rulers of diminutive states 
to govern unchecked by imperial restraint. These minor 
despots were in some cases well disposed and capable, but 
too often they were destitute of German spirit and were 
chiefly bent upon maldng their courts tawdry copies of the 
splendors of Versailles. 

Out of this crowd of feeble little states, long overshadowed 
by the great House of Hapsburg, Prussia emerged in the 
eighteenth century, and from being merely the Electorate 
of Brandenburg became the powerful Kingdom of Pn;ssia. 
But although the genius of Frederick the Great had won 
for Prussia a foremost place in Europe, Germany as a 
whole counted for little beside France and England. The 
greatest rival of Prussia was Austria. For generations the 
House of Hapsburg, while ruling Austria, had at the same 
time stood at the head of the German Empire. For a brief 
interval (1742-45) the Elector of Bavaria had held the 
dignity of Emperor, but at his death it was immediately 
given to Francis I, the husband of Maria Theresa, and after 
him to Joseph II. With the enfeebled German Empire, 
however, we need not longer concern ourselves, for its 
days of usefulness were past and its end was near. But the 
Austrian monarchy had a vigorous though troubled life, 
and ranked as one of the greatest powers of the eighteenth 
century. In the course of the eighteenth century Austria 
lost and gained territory, but she gained more than she 
lost. In 1772, Austria shared with Russia and Prussia in 
the dismemberment of Poland. In Italy Austria held the 
Duchies of Milan and Mantua and the Principality of 
Castiglione; and a member of the Lorraine branch of the 
House of Austria was the ruler of Tuscany. In the Low 
Countries the Catholic provinces — substantially the mod- 
em Belgium, — were under Austrian sovereignty. 

Beyond question these were great and important posses- 
sions. But the most marked characteristic of Austria as 
contrasted with France was that it was not a compact and 
homogeneous country inhabited by a people speaking the 

24 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

same language. France, indeed, harbored in Brittany a 
picturesque race that cherished its ancient speech and tra- 
ditions, but the Bretons were among the most loyal sup- 
porters of the throne. Austria, on the other hand, con- 
sisted of a group of provinces with little in common except 
dependence upon the ruling Hapsburg monarch. The 
dominant German clement cherished ideals very different 
from those of the Magyars, the Slavonians, the Ruman- 
ians, the Italians, who were continually struggling to ad- 
vance their own interests. Various languages, various 
political institutions, various customs, various religions, 
made real unity impossible and engendered constant 
jealousies and sometimes open strife. So slight was 
the bond uniting the Austrian provinces that, as is 
still the case, the personal qualities of the ruler were 
of great importance in holding together the disparate 
elements. 

It is to be noted, too, that far more than in France and 
the Rhine region of Germany had the spirit of medievalism 
survived in Austria. The aristocracy still enjoyed many 
odious class privileges and raised their heads high above the 
miserable common people. The peasants were bound to 
the soil and forced to labor for the aristocratic landowners 
as a compensation for the privilege of being allowed to 
exist. They were not even free to marry without the 
approval of their masters. In Hungary, in Bohemia, in 
Silesia, in Moravia there was, throughout the eighteenth 
century, a growing discontent and a more insistent longing 
for a diminution of the heavy feudal burdens. 

Maria Theresa, and far more in his turn the restless 
Joseph II, had to some extent succeeded in carrying through 
the most pressing social reforms, such, for example, as the 
abolition of serfdom, and the imposition of taxes upon the 
nobles. The zeal of Joseph II would have forced a host of 
sweeping changes upon his people, but he could not over- 
come the inertia of centuries, and at length, prematurely 
worn out and bitterly disappointed by his many failures, 
he died in 1790. 

25 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

Everything considered, Austria in the eighteenth century 
was in a very backward state. Education was sadly neg- 
lected. Illiteracy was general among the lower classes. 
Manners were brutal. Immorality was rife in all ranks of 
society. Free-thinking was popular in the upper classes and 
superstition pervaded the untutored peasantry. For the 
tourist there was in Austria little that was attractive out- 
side the cities. These were united by an extensive system 
of roads, which, on the great lines of travel, were main- 
tained by the centralized government in condition far 
better than was the case in the petty states of what^we 
now call Germany. 

VI 

Upon the other portions of Europe we need not long de- 
lay. Switzerland, securely placed in the center of the Con- 
tinent, took no recognized part in the affairs of Europe, 
and was permitted to work out its destiny undisturbed. 
Great wealth was unknown, and simplicity of living was 
the rule. Some of the mountain districts afforded a very 
scanty subsistence, but the country as a whole was reason- 
ably well-to-do and contented, and some cities, such as Basel 
and Geneva, enjoyed remarkable prosperity. 

In the northwest comer of the Continent were situated 
the Low Countries — the seven Dutch provinces that we 
collectively call Holland, from the name of the most im- 
portant, and the Austrian Netherlands. The story of the 
rise of the Dutch' RepubHc is one of the marvels of the 
history of Europe. Throughout the seventeenth century 
the little republic was extraordinarily prosperous, and her 
merchant vessels brought her untold wealth from every 
part of the world. Despite her diminutive size she stood 
up against the aggressive policy of France, for a moment 
humiliated England, and took an active part in the War 
of the Spanish Succession. The long strain of this and 
previous wars was, however, too severe, and except for 
the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48) and the brief 
but unfortunate naval war with England just at the close 

26 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

of the American Revolution, the Dutch Republic as a 
political power played throughout the eighteenth century- 
little or no part in shaping the destiny of Europe. But 
her merchants and her bankers, her florists, and her sea- 
men made her everywhere respected for her wealth and 
her trade. Dutch comfort and Dutch cleanliness were 
proverbial. Dutch freedom was the envy of the down- 
trodden in every part of Europe. 

Between Holland and France were the Catholic Low 
Countries, which we know as Belgium. These provinces 
had long been under Spanish rule, but at the close of the 
War of the Spanish Succession they had fallen to Austria. 
They were governed by an Austrian viceroy and, particu- 
larly during the reign of Maria Theresa, enjoyed a measure 
of prosperity. But the grasping policy of Holland and of 
England blocked the navigation of the Scheldt and pre- 
vented commercial expansion. From the signing of the 
Treaty of Utrecht to the French Revolution Holland over- 
shadowed the Austrian Netherlands and prevented them 
from seriously rivaling her commercial supremacy. 

We have now completed our survey of the portions of 
Europe that particularly concern us. With Denmark and 
Norway and Sweden and Russia and Poland and Turkey 
and Greece the majority of tourists had little to do, and 
our plan does not permit us to follow the steps of the occa- 
sional travelers. To Spain we must, however, give a word. 
In the eighteenth century Spain was in full decadence. 
An intolerant religious policy had rooted out and banished 
the most prosperous elements in the population of Spain. 
Vast wealth was in the hands of the Church, but poverty 
and superstition pervaded the country. Travel was at- 
tended with great discomfort. Roads were few and in 
bad repair. Inns throughout the country were of the most 
primitive character. Spanish misgovemment, moreover, 
had left its mark on more than one part of Europe. Span- 
ish princes still held portions of Italy, and Spanish posses- 
sions were scattered all over the world; but the energy 

27 



BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 

that had marked Spanish administration in the sixteenth 
century had given place to pretentious weakness; and to 
the increase of the power of Spain in any part of the world 
England in the eighteenth century was sternly opposed, 
as she had been in the days of the Invincible Armada. 

With Portugal, on the other hand, the relations of Eng- 
land were intimate and amicable. A good part of the coun- 
try was dominated by English capital, and the commerce 
of her greatest ports was wholly in the hands of the Eng- 
lish. The very food and clothing of the people came in large 
measure from England and in English bottoms ; on the otjier 
hand, the wine imported from Lisbon and Oporto into 
England, on the easy terms of the Methuen Treaty, and 
freely consumed in every well-to-do English household, 
made gout a disease almost inevitable to an Englishman of 
recognized social position. 

In a country like Portugal, where English interests were 
paramount, there were naturally a good many represen- 
tatives of English families not actively engaged in trade, 
but attracted by the genial climate and the beauty of the 
country. The lack of roads and accommodations for tour- 
ists compelled strangers for the most part, however, to 
sojourn in one of the coast towns, such as Oporto, Lisbon, 
Cintra. since touring in the interior for mere pleasure was 
hardly practicable. At all events, a voyage to Portugal 
was not counted as an essential part of the conventional 
grand tour, but rather as an interesting excursion for one 
who sought a change of scene and air. 



28 



CHAPTER III 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 
I 

The English Channel 

The real troubles of the tourist began with the crossing 
of the English Channel.* Even now, in luxurious steamers 
that make the run in less than an hour, the experience is 
for many no unmixed delight. But a century and a half 
ago, when the vessels were small, dirty, and ill-appointed, 
the passage was a torment, and, if strong head-winds blew, 
impossible. Some travelers went all the way by water from 
London to the Continent. "Upon Change every day is to 
be met with the master of a French trader; whose price to 
Calais, Dunkirk, or Boulogne is only a guinea each pas- 
senger : the passage is commonly made in sixteen or twenty 
hours : this scheme is much more commendable than going 
to Dover; where, should you chance to be wind-bound, it 
will cost you at least half a guinea a day." ^ 

Several routes were open to the traveler from England 
to the Continent. He might go from Harwich to the Bricl 
in Holland by packet boat,^ from Yarmouth to Cuxhaven, 
from London to Hamburg, from Brighton to Dieppe, from 
Dover to Calais or Boulogne, and so on. By landing at 
Boulogne one saved some miles of travel by coach on the 
way to Paris. A sailing vessel left London every week 
for Amsterdam, from which place there was also a return 
service.'' 

But the ordinary route to the Continent by way of Dover 
and Calais was the shortest and most popular. Yet, if we 
may trust the genial Smollett, the trip by coach to Dover 
was not entirely agreeable, though possibly not much worse 
than the trip to other seaports. "I need not tell you this 

29 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

is the worst road in England, witli respect to the conven- 
iences of travelling, and must certainly impress foreigners 
with an unfavorable opinion of the nation in general. The 
chambers are in general cold and comfortless, the beds 
paultry, the cookery execrable, the wine poison, the at- 
tendance bad, the publicans insolent, and the bills extor- 
tion; ^ there is not a drop of tolerable malt liquor to be 
had from London to Dover." ^ 

When the winds permitted, regular packet boats carrying 
mail and passengers left Dover for Calais on Tuesdays and 
Fridays of every week, and Calais for Dover on Wednesdays 
and Saturdays.' Besides these there were three or four 
barques belonging to private owners in Dover or Calais 
in which passage, including transportation of luggage, could 
be had for ten or twelve livres a person.* The exclusive use 
of a small vessel cost about five guineas.^ 

Before the introduction of steam vessels travelers were 
entirely at the mercy of the winds, and might be delayed 
on land for many days. In the sixteenth century, says 
Bates, "a forty-eight hour passage was nothing to grumble 
at." ^ Coryate, on his famous journey, went from Dover 
to Calais in ten hours. His characteristic description would 
apply in some particulars to a crossing even in our day. 
"I arrived," says he, "about five of the clocke in the after- 
noone, after I had varnished the exterior parts of the 
ship with the excrementall ebullitions of my tumultuous 
stomach, as desiring to satiate the gormandizing paunches 
of the hungry Haddocks . . . with that wherewith I 
had superfluously stuffed my selfe at land, having made 
my rumbling belly their capacious aumbrie." ' 

In the eighteenth century five hours or more was an or- 
dinary allowance for a crossing in a fair wind,^ though the 
run was often made in three hours, or even less.^ In 1754, 
the Earl of Cork and Orrery crossed from Dover to Calais 
in three hours and ten minutes.^" In 1772, Dr. Charles 
Burney spent nine days at Calais in waiting for weather 
that would permit him to cross the Channel. When he 
finally arrived at London he suffered a severe attack of 

30 



A FRENCH PORT 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

II 

"trance 

In more than one country of Europe travel by water was 
the cheapest and easiest way to get about. Wherever pos- 
sible, the rivers were utilized for transportation, and where 
there were none, canals often supplied the lack. The 
chief means of travel in France was of course some form of 
wheeled carriage. But the tourist had more than one 
opportunity to vary his journey by resorting to water 
transportation. From Paris he could take at eight in the 
morning the clumsy coche d'eau or galliot from the Pont- 
Royal down the Seine to Sevres or Saint-Cloud.^ He 
might even make his entrance to the capital by boat. 
Says Northleigh, "The barge which carries you from Foun- 
tainbleau down the river to Paris, being drawn by three or 
four horses, runs in ten or twelve hours, sixteen of their 
leagues, or about forty-eight English miles." ^ For going 
from Rouen to Paris by boat one allowed thirty-six hours. ^ 

If the tourist happened to be at Toulouse, he could go to 
the Mediterranean by the Languedoc Canal, nearly one 
hundred and fifty miles long, the greatest work of the sort 
in Europe.^ Besides the river Seine, the Loire, the Gironde, 
and other smaller streams each in their measure enabled 
tourists, as well as natives, to get from place to place with 
reasonable comfort and tolerable expedition. But the 
most famous water journey in France, and one that the 
traveler to Italy almost invariably took, was the trip down 
the Rhone. He might even take a "water carriage" from 
Paris to Lyons, paying thirty-five livres for his passage, 
and spending ten days upon the way.^ He then embarked 
at Lyons in the coche d'eau and ghding "down the river 
with great velocity" arrived with little trouble or expense 
at Marseilles. For dinners and suppers he resorted to the 
ordinaries in the towns and villages on each side of the 
river. His chief anxiety was to get safely past the dan- 
gerous Pont Saint-Esprit, where more than one vessel was 

32 



THE GRAND TOURNAMENT OF THE BOATMEN OF 
' PARIS IN 1 75 1, BETWEEN PONT-AU-CHANGE AND 
PONT NOTRE-DAME 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

embarked with the courier for Genoa. We paid a zcchin ' 
each for our passage; and paid for our baggage besides. 
They rowed all night; and, at ten in the morning, we ar- 
rived at the city of Genoa," ^ twenty leagues from Lcrici. 
Thence he continued to Villafranca "in a small boat with 
oars and sails." ' 

The coasting trip was not always so easily accomplished. 
Wright wished to go from Marseilles to Leghorn, and this 
was his experience: "After having been detained at Mar- 
seilles a fortnight by contrary winds ... I went on 
board a bark bound for Leghorn: we met with very bad 
weather; after six days labouring with wind and sea . . . 
we were glad at last to get ashore at St. Remo." * 

The other most popular coasting trip was the run from 
Rome to Naples, which was inexpensive, and even in bad 
weather enabled the traveler to exchange one sort of dis- 
comfort for another.'' "By water the passage is very pleas- 
ant in summer; this is generally perfonned in a felucca or 
small boat, which you hire at Rome or Ostia for eight pis- 
toles, and keeping close to the shore, in order to have shelter 
in case of bad weather, you arrive at Naples in four and 
twenty hours, or at furthest in two days and two nights 
with a fair wind. Those who do not choose to hire a boat 
to themselves pay two crowns for their passage and four 
or five crowns for passage and board." ' 

One objection to travel on the Mediterranean was the 
danger, not wholly imaginary, of capture by Barbary 
pirates, who might be found lurldng in some sheltered bay 
awaiting an opportunity to pounce upon an unprotected 
vessel.' 

Once in the country the tourist in Italy found his chief 
opportunity for water travel in the great plain between 
the Apennines and the Alps. Here, where the roads were 
none too good, the tourist often saved trouble and expense 
by taking a water route. This was, indeed, the favorite 
way of going from Ferrara to Venice. Between Ferrara and 
Bologna one could go by post-route or by canal. ^ Ray, 
who made the journey in the seventeenth century, de- 

34 



THE WATER JOURNEY FROM PADUA TO VENICE — 
THE REMULCIO TOWING THE BURCELLO 



^f- 1 (> 







I 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

scribes the journey to Venice in detail: "Taking the Flor- 
entine Procaccio's boat to Venice, we passed through nine 
sostegni or locks to Mai Albergo, where we shifted our 
boat, going from a higher to a lower channel, which brought 
us to Ferrara, forty-five miles distant from Bologna. From 
Ferrara we were tow'd by a horse through an artificial chan- 
nel as far as Ponte, where ent'ring the river Po, we chang'd 
our boat again and were row'd down the stream twenty- 
seven miles to Corbola, where ent'ring the Venetian terri- 
tories we were obliged once more to change in order to take 
a Venetian boat." ^ 

James Edward Smith, who traveled in the same region 
more than a century later, found the accommodations on 
this route still sufficiently primitive: "This evening (May 
8), about ten o'clock, we went on board the boat of the 
courier for Venice, paying thirty pauls each, not quite 
fifteen shillings, to be landed there free of all other ex- 
pense, and fed by the way. . . . After a confused kind of 
supper which our good captain endeavoured to make as 
comfortable as possible, an arrangement of mattresses took 
place . . . and the company were laid, or rather piled 
upon them, over chests, bales, and everything that could 
be thought of." ^ 

Mariana Starke at the end of the eighteenth century 
went from Ferrara to Mestre by carriage and by gondola to 
Venice. But she recommends invalids "to embark at 
Francolino, which is five miles from Ferrara, and go all 
the way to Venice by water, a voyage of eighty miles up 
the Po, the Adige, the Brenta, and the Lagoons, which is 
usually performed in about twenty hours. Carriages, 
however, must at all events go over land ; but, as the road 
is extremely bad, they go best empty." ^ 

One water journey was celebrated, and that was the 
passage of the Brenta in going from Padua to Venice, a 
distance of about twenty-five miles. On both sides of the 
stream rose the palaces of the Venetian nobility, "built 
with so great a variety of architecture that there is not one 
of them like another." * Of the richness and beauty of these 

35 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

palatial villas and their grounds tourists could not say 
enough,^ for the eighteenth-century traveler was a devoted 
admirer of closely kept hedges and formal gardens laid out 
in geometrical lines. One sensible Englishman, however, 
at the opening of the nineteenth century considerably 
modified the enthusiastic etilogies of his predecessors. 
"These banks," says he, "have without a doubt a rich, a 
lively, and sometimes a splendid appearance; but their 
splendour and beauty have been much exaggerated, or are 
much faded; and an Englishman accustomed to the 
Thames, and to the villas which grace its banks, will •dis- 
cover little to excite his admiration, as he descends the 
canal of the Brenta." ^ 

The ordinary traveler made the trip on the Brenta in 
about eight hours ^ in a burchio or hurcello, which with its 
mirrors and carpets and glass doors was a sufficiently luxu- 
rious conveyance. "The Burcello is a large handsome 
boat; the middle part of which is a pretty room, generally 
adorn'd with carving, gilding, and painting. 'T is drawn 
down the Brenta with one horse to Fusino, the entrance 
into the Lagune; and from thence to Venice 'tis hawl'd 
along by another boat, which they call a Remulcio, with 
four or six rowers." * 

Exclusive travelers "of a certain rank" hired a boat for 
their own use. This would commonly hold twenty persons 
or more and "with every expense included" cost "an 
English company about thirty-five shillings." ^ 

Besides these considerable journeys on the water there 
was frequent occasion to cross streams, small or large, and 
the lack of bridges necessitated fording or the use of ferries. 
The fording of small watercourses was so common in hilly 
districts as ordinarily to excite no comment, but the trav- 
eler occasionally jotted in his notebook a comment on the 
gullying of mountain roads after heavy rains and the 
flooding of the lowlands in the spring. A river fed by gla- 
ciers might always be expected to give the traveler some 
difficiilty. The following was an ordinary incident of travel : 
"After a slight examination at St. Laurent, the last town 

36 



A FERRY ON THE PO 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

in France, we forded the river Var, with the help of some 
guides, and entered the king of Sardinia's dominions." On 
account of the depth of the river, which is full of shifting 
holes, "the guides are therefore obHged to wade naked up 
to their waists on each side of the carriage, feeling their 
way with poles. If any person be lost, the guides are 
hanged without mercy; yet their pay, as fixed by govern- 
ment, is very low, three-pence for each passage. All trav- 
ellers, who have the least spark of generosity, give them 
much more." ^ 

Ferries 2 in some districts were a perpetual annoyance. 
Tourists often complained of being entrapped into a bargain 
for transportation that did not include the ferry charges, 
which were easily made greater for strangers ignorant of 
the usual rates.^ De Drosses found the numerous ferries 
between Bologna and Venice very expensive and particu- 
larly annoying because of the delay they occasioned. ^ 

As elsewhere observed, eighteenth-century tourists ap- 
pear hardly to have discovered the Italian lakes, or at all 
events to have made little effort to see them. The cele- 
brated Borromean Isles in Lake Maggiore drew admiring 
travelers, but the lakes in general were regarded merely as 
an easy means of transportation. 



IV 

Germany 

In Germany there were three chief rivers of service to 
the tourist, —the Rhine, the Danube, and the Elbe. In the 
eighteenth century, as indeed for centuries before, the Rhine 
offered the most convenient route between the north and 
the south of Germany. So indispensable was it that from 
ancient days the authorities on both sides of the river ex- 
acted high tolls from all boatmen for the privilege of pass- 
ing.6 Before the eighteenth century the boatmen in their 
turn exacted labor from their passengers. Cory ate tells 
us that even those who had paid their passage were com- 

37 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

pelled to take their turn at the oar. On arriving at Obcr- 
winter, says he, "We solaced ourselves, after our tedious 
labour of rowing, as merrily as we could." * This excellent 
form of exercise gradually ceased to be compulsory. For 
ascending the river horses were employed, as indeed they 
had been in Coryate's day. Cogan gives a view of Bonn 
with a vessel of two or three hundred tons drawn by three 
horses in single file going up the Rhine. ^ For larger craft, 
when heavily loaded, the number of horses was increased 
to ten or even twenty.^ In shallow places such vessels had 
to use lighters. Says Cogan,'^ "When the water is low and 
the wind is against them, they are some months in making 
their passage." 

With such cargo-boats the ordinary tourist * had little 
to do, for he could find ample accommodation in vessels 
designed expressly for passenger traffic. "These are of 
various sizes, according to the number of passengers to be 
accommodated. Those most commonly in use have an 
oblong cabin built in the centre, that will contain tenor 
twelve persons very commodiously ; between this and the 
helm are benches with a canvas stretched upon hoops by 
way of canopy, which forms a second compartment for a 
lower class of passengers. The boatman is attended with 
one or two servants. The passage is just as you make 
your agreement. . . . We hired our boat for thirteen shil- 
lings English, giving the man, however, permission to take 
in two or three other passengers that wished to go with 
him." 6 

The swift current of the Rhine so aided the descent that 
the charge for going from Mainz to Cologne was much less 
than for going from Cologne to Mainz. Multitudes of 
craft simply floated downstream, aided a little, perhaps, 
by a sail and kept by the rudder or an occasional dip of 
the great sweeps from striking the shore or some other 
obstruction. 

Transport on the Danube or the Elbe was much the same 
as on the Rhine, except that not infrequently the accommo- 
dations were more primitive. One traveler who went down 

38 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

the Danube in 1792 recorded in his journal, "The seventh 
day of my being immured in a sty." ' Travelers in general 
complain that the boats are small and dirty and over- 
crowded. Yet even at worst the boats were hardly in- 
ferior to the conveyances on land. The luxurious Lady 
Mary Montagu, who in 17 16 descended the Danube from 
Rcgcnsburg to Vienna, found the "journey perfectly agree- 
able." She went "in one of those little vessels, that they 
very properly call wooden houses, having in them all the 
conveniences of a palace, stoves in the chambers, kitchens, 
etc. They are rowed by twelve men each, and move with 
such incredible swiftness, that in the same day you have 
the pleasure of a vast variety of prospects." ^ She obvi- 
ously had a boat of the highest type. 

In 1798, Mariana Starke found very good accommoda- 
tions in going from Dresden to Hamburg by the Elbe. 
"Hearing that the road was execrably bad, and that the 
inns were very indifferent, we determined to dismiss our 
mules, and go by water, in an excellent boat, with three 
cabins, four beds, a place behind for men-servants, and 
another before for baggage." The voyage, says she, is 
"usually accomplished in less than a week; even though 
you cast anchor for a few hours every night, in order to 
avoid the noise which the Boatmen constantly make while 
going on." 3 

The trip down the Elbe from Hamburg to Cuxhavcn, in 
boats containing beds for five or six persons and a fireplace 
for cooking, took eighteen hours for about sixty miles. 
For the boat and the three watermen the charge was sev- 
enty marks. Four marks were added as a gratuity. The 
passengers found provisions for themselves, but not for 
the watermen.'' 

V 

Holland and Belgium 

In the eighteenth century, as in our day, the Low 
Countries were a network of waterways, artificial and 

39 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

natural. The service had been highly organized for genera- 
tions, and guide-books published elaborate "Directions to 
know at what times the post-waggons, draw-boats, passage- 
vessels, or sailing-boats, and market-boats, set out from 
Amsterdam to the principal towns in the Low Countries, 
according to their alphabetical order." ' Nugent's ac- 
count, which follows, enables us to see precisely what we 
should have had to do : — 

"The usual way of travelling in Holland, and most parts 
of the United Provinces as well as in a great many prov- 
inces of the Austrian and French Netherlands, is in Treck- 
scoots, or Draw-boats, which are large covered boats not 
unlike the barges of the livery companies of London, drawn 
by a horse at the rate of three miles an hour; the fare of 
which does not amount to a penny a mile ; and you have 
the conveniency of carrying a portmanteau, or provisions; 
so that you need not be at any manner of expence at a 
public house by the way. The rate of places in these boats, 
as also in their post-waggons, is fixed; therefore there is no 
occasion for contending about the price. The carriage of 
one's baggage must be paid apart, for which there docs not 
seem to be any settled price, but is left to the discretion 
of the skipper or boatman, who judges generally according 
as his thick scull and avaricious heart directs him ; for which 
reason you must agree upon a price for the carriage of your 
goods before you put them in, or you will be obliged to give 
him whatever he pleases to ask. . . . 

"There is scarce a town in Holland but one may travel 
to in this manner every day; and if it be a considerable 
place, almost every hour, at the ringing of a bell; but they 
will not stay a moment afterwards for a passenger, tho' 
they see him coming." ^ 

Another account of the canal boats by a contemporary 
writer completes the picture, with very little repetition : — 

"These passage-boats, or treck schuyts, as they are called 
in the language of the country, go at the rate of four miles 
an hour, stopping only about half a quarter of an hour at 
certain villages, to give the passenger an opportunity of 

40 



ON A DUTCH CANAL IN WINTER 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

stretching himself, and taking a little refreshment in the 
inns. The fare is about three farthings a mile. . . . 

"The boat is drawn by a horse, and contains about 
twenty or five and twenty passengers. It is very clean, 
with a deck over it which covers them from rain, etc., so 
that they are as much at ease as in their own houses. They 
talk, read, sew, knit, as each likes best; and do not know 
they are going by water, except they look out, and see 
they are moving, the motion is so insensible. . . . The 
boat has windows on the sides to let in the air ; from which 
also the passengers may see the country as they travel. 
The boat goes off every hour of the day, on the ringing of 
a little bell; ^ so that one knows to a minute when he is 
to set out, and to a few minutes, when he shall arrive at 
his journey's end. Strangers are equally surprised and 
charmed with this way of travelling, as it is indeed far 
the most commodious, best regulated, and cheapest in 
Europe." ^ 

To a modern reader the speed does not seem excessive,^ 
but the boats compared favorably even in speed with the 
ordinary wheeled conveyances in many parts of Europe. 
In other particulars the comfort of the boats was incom- 
parably greater than that of the post-wagon or the coach. 
Travelers grow enthusiastic over the delights of water 
travel in Holland and Flanders and declare that "the 
convenience and pleasure of it can hardly be conceived 
from description." * Misson, about a century earlier, had 
remarked on these boats: "You are seated as quietly in 
them as if you were at home, and sheltered both from rain 
and wind : so that you may go from one country to another, 
almost without perceiving that you are out of the house." ^ 

One treck-scoot in particular, plying daily between Ghent 
and Bruges through a canal thirty miles long, was called 
"the most remarkable boat of the kind in all Europe; for 
it is a perfect tavern divided into several appartments, 
with a very good ordinary at dinner of six or seven dishes, 
and all sorts of wines at moderate prices. In winter they 
have fires in their chimneys, and the motion of the vessel 

41 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WATER TRAVEL 

is so gentle that a person is all the way as if he were in a 
house." ^ 

Even minor towns were well served. Note a single in- 
stance: "The boat that passes between Brussels and Ville- 
brocck is extremely commodious: the passengers may be 
accommodated with meat and drink." ^ 

For going from Amsterdam to Antwerp and Brussels 
three or four gentlemen accompanied by ladies might hire 
a yacht at Rotterdam for from seven to ten guilders a^ay 
and see the country with entire independence. They could 
take servants with them to cook their food and look after 
the baggage; they could sleep in good beds on the boat, 
and be more comfortable than at an inn. "If they have a 
mind, they may stop by the way to see Dort or Bergen-op- 
Zoom, or some of the towns of Zealand." ' The chief in- 
convenience from this sort of travel arose in hot weather, 
when the nearly stagnant water in the canals became cov- 
ered with green scum and exhaled a noisome stench. 



42 



CHAPTER IV 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

The modern tourist who bowls along in his private 
motor-car over highways smooth as a floor through almost 
every part of Europe, or the sight-seer of modest means 
who employs the more plebeian means of transport, can 
little appreciate what land travel meant a century and a 
half ago. The Romans, with their keen practical sense and 
unsurpassed administrative ability, had constructed a won- 
derful system of paved roads radiating from the capital to 
all parts of the Empire.^ It is not too much to say that in 
the time of the Roman Empire one could travel with more 
expedition and less discomfort than was the case, in the 
eighteenth century, throughout the greater part of Europe. 
With the overthrow of the imperial power the old Roman 
roads had fallen into decay. What had once been un- 
broken lines of easy communication ^ between the capital 
and the remotest provincial towns had often become rude 
and almost undistinguishable paths. Except in portions 
of France and of the Low Countries, the roads through- 
out most of Europe in the eighteenth century were a 
disgrace to civilized countries. One might reasonably ex- 
pect that where the highways were the chief, and in many 
cases the only, means of communication, they would be 
brought to the highest perfection, but such was by no 
means the rule. Even in England, which was not lacking 
in wealth and some degree of splendor, the roads in the 
seventeenth century presented almost insuperable difficul- 
ties, which Macaulay depicts with his usual vigor. ^ In the 
eighteenth century the overturning or miring of a coach in 
the immediate neighborhood of London was one of the 

43 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

commonest of incidents.^ In wet weather there was in 
London a veritable slough between Kensington Palace and 
St. James's Palace. 

II 

France 

The roads of France are generally praised by eighteenth- 
century travelers.^ It is, moreover, unquestionably true 
that on the whole no part of Europe in the last quarter of 
the century, except some portions of the Low Countries, 
had roads so good as France,^ but in the seventeenth cen- 
tury even the French roads left much to be desired, and 
in some cases they could hardly have failed to improve if 
they had remained passable at all. When Lippomano was 
in France in the sixteenth century he found the roads 
frightfully miry. Only the highway from Paris to Or- 
leans was paved. In Poitou he could make but four 
leagues a day.^ As late as the middle of the seventeenth 
century the roads were often ill-defined and passed through 
fords so deep as to let the water into the carriage through 
the sides.^ Before 1700, and in many regions after that 
date, travel at night was deemed inadvisable.® Not until 
the reign of Louis XVI had the corvees so improved the 
highways that diligences ventured on the roads after dark.' 
More than one of the roads remained bad to a late date. 
The keen-eyed Abbd Barth^lemy went to Italy in 1755, 
and he remarks: ^ "Some of our journeys have been very 
tiresome. The one from Auxerre to Dijon, which is two 
and thirty leagues, was most intolerable. The road passes 
through a very fine country, but in itself it is the worst I 
have ever seen." 

The well-known traveler Breval had trouble in reaching 
Auxerre from the other side: "Auxerre made us some 
Amends for three Days very dismally spent in getting 
thither from Gien, thro' a barren ill-peopled Country, and 
impassable almost for Wheel-Carriages." ® The distance 
in our time by railway is only fifty-seven miles. 

44 



I 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

Foreign tourists had little occasion to traverse the ex- 
treme west of France, — Brittany and La Vendee, — but 
there, too, the condition of the roads was extremely primi- 
tive. John Carr in going back to England from his tour 
in France passed through Caen in Normandy. "After we 
left Caen," says he, "the roads became very bad. Our 
ponderous machine [diligence] frequently rolled from one 
side to the other, and with many alarming crackings, 
threatened us with a heavy and perilous overthrow." ^ 

Many highways, especially in the remoter provinces, 
were without question sadly out of repair. But notwith- 
standing bad roads, such as one too often finds in America 
to-day, the quality of the French roads in general was 
excellent. The chief alleged defect was the heavy pave- 
ment,^ which ill-adapted them for the passage of light 
carriages.^ The anonymous author of "A View of Paris" 
(1701), though fond of satirical comment, says neverthe- 
less of the road from Paris to Versailles that it "is pav'd 
exceeding even, as indeed are most roads in France. ' ' ^ Lady 
Mary Montagu was not given to overpraise, but in 1739 
she writes: "France is so much improved, it would not be 
known to be the same country we passed through, twenty 
years ago . . . the roads are all mended, and the greater 
part of them paved as well as the streets of Paris, planted 
on both sides like the roads in Holland; and such good 
care taken against robbers, that you may cross the country 
with your purse in your hand." ^ 

The road between Calais and Saint-Omer, says Jones,^ 
"seems equal to any of the best turnpike roads we have in 
England," being about forty feet wide and planted with 
willows, poplars, and elms. So good was the road between 
Mons and Paris that the masters of the diligences assured 
their patrons that on the third day after leaving Brussels 
one could dine at Paris.'' And Dr. Rigby says, in 1789: 
"We were told to expect nothing but rough paved roads. 
They are paved in some places, but in others as good as 
English roads." ^ 

45 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

III 

Italy 

We occasionally detect in the tourist in Italy an apparent 
lack of interest in notable places only a short distance off 
the beaten track. As a partial explanation we must ob- 
serve that large districts in Italy had either no roads at all 
or at best mere tracks that in wet weather were sloughs 
and in dry weather were troughs of dust. The best roads 
were bad enough. In Piedmont, says Tivaroni/ "travel 
was difficult for all. On going out from many towns and 
from many villages one was compelled to proceed on foot 
or to ride on asses, mules, or horses along narrow roads that 
were in wretched repair or crossed by streams of water 
lacking bridges. . . . The bad state of the roads was and 
remained one of the greatest obstacles to the progress of 
internal commerce, the maintenance of the thoroughfares 
— even the royal highways — being entrusted to the com- 
munes." 

This general statement about the roads of Piedmont 
may easily be paralleled for the greater part of Italy - in 
contemporary books of travel dating from the beginning to 
the end of the century. Most significant are the accounts 
of those travelers who write late in the eighteenth century 
or early in the nineteenth, for one has a right by that time 
to expect some improvement. 

We may single out a few specimen comments, beginning 
with the northern districts. James Edward Smith said 
that the country about Genoa was so extremely hilly that 
the only way of traveling into the interior parts was in 
sedan chairs.' Writing in May of 1766, Sharp notes: 
"We are arrived at Turin; but the journey from Alexandria 
has been unpleasant; one night's rain has made the road 
almost impassable, so muddy and clayey is the soil." •* 

An earlier traveler, very fair-minded, says that the jour- 
ney of ninety miles between San Remo and Genoa re- 

46 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

quires three days on muleback. The road is "either very 
good or very bad, but much the most of the latter; gener- 
ally along the brinks of vast high mountains, the path very 
narrow and very rugged." ' 

Some friends of Smollett were "exposed to a variety of 
disagreeable adventures from the impracticability of the 
road. The coach had been several times in the most immi- 
nent hazard of being lost with all our baggage ; and at two 
different places it was necessary to hire a dozen of oxen 
and as many men, to disengage it from the holes into which 
it had run." * 

A little ofl the main routes one might expect almost 
anything. Here is an account of a drive to Petrarch's last 
home — Arqua Petrarcha: "A little beyond the village of 
Cataio, we turned ofl from the high road, and alighting 
from the carriage on account of the swampiness of the 
country, we walked and rowed occasionally through lines 
of willows, or over tracts of marshy land, for two or three 
miles, till we began to ascend the mountain. . . .^ We 
passed through the village and descended the hill. Though 
overturned by a blunder of the drivers, and for some time 
suspended over the canal with imminent danger of being 
precipitated into it, yet as the night was bright and warm, 
and all the party in high spirits, the excursion was ex- 
tremely pleasant." * 

As for Tuscany, Bishop Burnet had remarked before 
the close of the seventeenth century, "All the ways of 
Tuscany are very rugged, except on the sides of the Amo; 
but the uneasiness of the road is much qualified by the 
great care that is had of the highways, which are all in 
very good case." ^ De La Lande agrees with Burnet: 
"One travels agreeably in Tuscany, the roads being in gen- 
eral fine, with the exception of those between Siena and the 
boundary of the Grand Duchy." ^ 

But of the much-traveled way between Bologna and 
Florence Addison says: "The way . . . runs over several 
ranges of mountains, and is the worst road, I believe, of 
any over the Apennines, for this was my third time of 

47 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

crossing them." ^ In more detail Nugent comments: 
"Tliis road is so incommodious for wheel-carriages that 
those who travel between Bologna and Florence choose 
either litters or mules, because of being obliged so often to 
alight and walk a-foot, rather than calashes, in which they 
travel in the plain country. The litters from Bologna to 
Florence usually cost two pistoles and a half, or three pis- 
toles, the horses eighteen or twenty julios, according to the 
season." ^ 

Roads crossing the Apennines might be expected to offer 
some difficulty, but even the great highways connecting 
the North and the South were little better. The road 
from Siena to Rome, one of the most traveled in Italy, 
had an evil reputation. Says De Brosses, "It was more 
than enough to dishearten travellers without mentioning 
broken shafts or axles, somersaults, and other little inci- 
dents of the trip." ^ 

Worst of all were the roads throughout the South. In 
traveling in the Kingdom of Naples everything, says Tiva- 
roni, had to be carried on the backs of mules. "It was 
difficult or dangerous to go on horseback in Calabria, and 
little less in the Abruzzi." * "Up to the time of Charles III, 
the Kingdom [of Naples] had no roads except that to Rome 
and perhaps in part that to Foggia. Every other trace of 
passable roads was lacking. 'It is impossible,' remarked 
Gorani, who was later at Naples, when already the roads 
had increased in number, ' to travel in this kingdom. The 
roads are extremely neglected and dangerous ; because there 
is no police, they offer none of the conveniences that are 
found in the greater part of the countries of Europe. Most 
journeys are made on horseback, with horses or mules fol- 
lowing for carrying baggage and provisions.'" ^ 

De La Lande confirms Tivaroni by saying of the road 
between Rome and Naples that it was so bad in winter that 
one ran great risk of being swallowed up in the mud-holes.^ 
"Charles III opened roads for wheeled carriages from 
Naples as far as Capua, Caserta, Persano, Venafro, and 
Bo vino. They led to the kings' hunting grounds."' From 

48 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

1778 to 1793, Ferdinand opened various carriage roads for 
traffic between province and province and from the interior 
to the sea. But these were only main thoroughfares. In 
fact, throughout all the rest of the kingdom cross-roads 
and means of intercommunication were lacking almost 
everywhere. 

Sicily was, if possible, even worse provided with means 
of communication: "There were, in 1852, just 750 miles of 
carriage-road in the whole island. Even the two chief 
cities, Palermo and Messina, were not linked by any con- 
tinuous highway, for the middle part of the connexion was 
'a mule track 42 miles long.' Travellers, therefore, went 
from the east to the west of the island by sea, except a few 
of the richer and more adventurous English tourists, who 
rode over the rough tracks, taking their own tents and 
provisions, for the food and lodging that could be obtained 
from the natives appear to have been more intolerable than 
they are to-day." ^ 

The state of the roads in Sicily may be judged by a 
single significant fact. In 1734, Charles of Bourbon had 
occasion to go from the mainland to Palermo, but he pro- 
ceeded all the way by sea, "as the proposal of a land jour- 
ney was frustrated by the rugged nature of the country, 
which was wild and almost uninhabited. "^ Obviously, the 
average eighteenth-century tourist could not hope to 
travel more easily than a prince in his own dominions. 

IV 

Germany 

The roads of Germany were notoriously bad. Complaints 
about them were incessant; and although much labor was 
spent upon them in the later years of the eighteenth cen- 
tury,^ there was so much to be done that the comments of 
tourists were justly severe.'* In the eighteenth century, as 
in our time, Germany had great and splendid cities, but 
not until 1753 was the first scientifically constructed road 

49 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

built. Misson found the roads between Cologne and Mainz 
so bad that he went by the Rhine "notwithstanding the 
extreme slowness of the passage." ^ In speaking of the 
road between Augsburg and Munich he says: "The country 
is extremely rough for coaches, by the straight road; they 
are very apt to overturn, and the passengers are often con- 
strain'd to alight, by reason of the continual ascending and 
descending among the mountains." ^ From Nuremberg 
the roads were "very bad and woody till you come towards 
Ingolstadt." "Our journey along the Rhine," says Breval, 
"thro' the extreme badness of the ways, tho' in the midst 
of Summer, took us up two whole days between Shaffhouse 
and Augst." ^ 

In the same tenor Nugent cautions travelers: "The 
roads in general are very indifferent, which makes it down- 
right misery to travel in bad weather." * Post-wagons, he 
says, do not make over eighteen miles a day. The fastidious 
Duke of Hamilton traveled in company with Dr. Moore, 
who wrote an account of their journeys. In going from 
Frankfort to Cassel they arrived at midnight of the second 
day. "As the ground is quite covered with snow, the roads 
bad, and the posts long, we were obliged to take six horses 
for each chaise, which, after all, in some places, moved no 
faster than a couple of hearses." Moore interjects a word 
of comment on "the phlegm and obstinacy of German 
postillions, of which one who has not travelled in the ex- 
tremity of the winter, and when the roads are covered with 
snow, through this country, can form no idea." ^ 

Another tourist says that ten hours were required to go 
the thirty-six miles from Limburg to Frankfort-on-the- 
Main.® As late as 1826 the Englishman Russell pronounced 
some portions of the road from Magdeburg to Berlin "the 
worst in Europe," — an "unceasing pull through loose 
dry sand, which rises to the very nave of the wheel." ^ 
The same conditions obtained about Hanover. "Scarcely 
out of the gates of Hanover, and the wheels already drowned 
in sand up to the axle-tree." ^ 

The roads in Austria were, in some districts, better than 

50 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ROADS 

in regions farther west, but a tourist seeking an impassable 
highway could safely count on finding one. In going, as 
late as 1798, from Lobositz to Aussig, writes Mariana 
Starke, "the lightest vehicle can scarcely escape over- 
turning, unless held up by men. . . . Two persons who 
went in carriages at the same time with us broke blood- 
vessels, while others were over-turned, and nearly killed 
with fatigue." ^ 

After this recital, which could be indefinitely extended, 
of the difficulties attending travel on German roads, we 
may with little hesitation agree with a tourist in Germany 
at the end of the eighteenth century that "the manner of 
travelling ... is more inconvenient than in any other 
part of Europe equally civilized. Intercommunication is 
therefore greatly impeded and in the winter months totally 
interrupted." ^ 

V 

The Low Countries 

In the Low Countries, particularly in Flanders, the roads 
appear to have been very good except in some of the less 
frequented parts. ^ The slight elevation of the land offered 
small obstacles to the building of thoroughfares that went 
with undeviating directness from one town to another. In 
multitudes of instances the road ran beside the canal and 
served both as a towpath and a highway for general traffic. 
Very commonly, as we may see in the pictures of Hobbema, 
the roads were planted with two rows of trees and main- 
tained in excellent condition. James Essex, who toured in 
France and the Low Countries in 1773, went from Antwerp 
by way of Mechlin to Brussels and notes in his "Journal": 
"The Roads are worth the notice of a Traveler, being made 
through the most delightfull inclosed Country that can be 
immagined, it is paved in the middle, as well as the best 
streets in London, and kept in better repair." * 



51 



CHAPTER V 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 
I 

France *- 

The means of transportation in France in the eighteenth 
century were often praised, even by foreigners; and we have 
already seen that the French highways were among the 
best in Europe. "TravelHng," says Nugent, "is no where 
more convenient than in France, with respect as well to 
carriages as accommodations on the road. Where there is 
conveniency of rivers, they have water carriages, which 
are large boats drawn by horses. Their land carriages are 
of four sorts, \'iz. post chaises, the carossc or stage-coach, 
the cocJic, and the diligence or flying-coach." ^ He might 
have added the berline, a four-wheeled vehicle ^'ith a 
hooded seat behind, which was said to be very comfortable.' 

Yet English travelers of all classes find much to criticize 
in the vehicles offered for hire in France. It must be con- 
fessed that most countries of Europe were not so well pro- 
vided, but the development of facilities for travel in France 
had been somewhat slow. "As late as 1686 there was be- 
tween Rouen and Havre but one carriage for hire, which 
was covered with canvas ' and was neither decent nor 
comfortable." * An Englishman in the last quarter of the 
seventeenth century summarized his impression of French 
horses and vehicles in the following terms: "Their horses 
[are] little, and so strangely put together that scarce any 
of them can either trot or gallop, and 'tis easier to teach 
an English horse to dance than one of them to amble, for 
they can only go the pas, whence their coaches and all 
manner of voiture, is so slow as 'tis intolerable."* 

And another English tourist nearly a century later ob- 

52 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

serves: "The French vehicles for travelling appear very- 
unpromising to an Englishman: their timbers seem to con- 
stitute a sufficient load without the passengers or the bag- 
gage, especially as the French horses are but small; and 
their springs, which are placed behind to diminish the shocks 
upon the stone pavements of their great roads, very much 
resemble the hammers of a fulling-mill." ' 

The same traveler remarks upon his journey from Saint- 
Omer to Lisle: "In the shafts of our chaise they place a 
horse of the cart breed, but below the size of our drawing 
horses, harnessed with ropes and a great wooden collar. 
By the sides of the shaft-horse are two ponies, on one of 
which the postilion rides, with boots, literally as big as two 
oyster-barrels, and armed with hoops of iron, to save his 
leg in case of accidents." ^ 

So, too, Mrs. Piozzi says that at Calais the "postillions 
with greasy night-caps and vast jack-boots, driving your 
carriage harnessed with ropes, and adorned with sheep- 
skins, can never fail to strike an Englishman at his first 
visit abroad." ' 

But notwithstanding some weak spots in the system, 
the public transportation service in France in the eighteenth 
century was fairly satisfactory. Dr. Rigby, in 1789, re- 
marks in a letter from Chantilly: "Yesterday we travelled 
more than ninety miles with perfect ease; the roads are 
most excellent; the horses are good for travelling, I really 
think better than the English, but they are all rough, with 
long manes and tails, and no trimmed or cropped ears, 
which I believe makes the English abuse them." * One 
could with little difficulty find a conveyance making regular 
trips from most places of any size and connecting with all 
parts of the kingdom, and one could at most posting-houses 
find a chaise for one's personal use. For long journeys, as, 
for instance, between Calais and Paris or Paris and Lyons, 
unless the traveler could afford his own carriage, he com- 
monly went in the diligence,^ "so called from its expedi- 
tion." "This," says Nugent, "differs from the carosse or 
ordinary stage-coach in little else but in moving with greater 

53 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

velocity," * and in maldng from "seventy to a hundred 
miles a day."' "But," objects Smollett, "the inconven- 
iences attending this way of travelling are these. You are 
crowded into the carriage to the number of eight persons 
so as to sit very uneasy, and sometimes run the risk of 
being stifled among very indifferent company. You are 
hurried out of bed at four, three, nay often at two in the 
morning.^ You are obliged to eat in the French way. which 
is very disagreeable to an English palate." * Arthur Ycning, 
too. notes in his "Travels in France":^ "This is the first 
French diligence I have been in, and shall be the last; they 
are detestable." 

Well on in the nineteenth century Bayard Taylor, though 
not particularly fastidious, agrees perfectly with Young. 
"After waiting an hour in a hotel beside the rushing Yonne, 
a liunbering diligence was got ready, and we were offered 
places to Paris for seven francs. As the distance is one 
hundred and ten miles, this would be considered cheap fare, 
but I should not want to travel it again and be paid for 
doing so. Twelve persons were packed into a box not large 
enough for a cow." * For many travelers, however, the 
advantages of a system of transportation that was inex- 
pensive and relieved them of all responsibility outweighed 
the discomfort. 

More than one tourist has left us a strildng pictm-e of this 
mountainous and un\\-ieldy vehicle. — "a huge, rickety, 
shabby, yellow argosy, all over dried, dirty mud splashes." ' 
Edward Wright, who traveled in France toward the end 
of the first quarter of the century, says of it: "The dili- 
gence, a great coach that holds eight persons, is a machine 
that has not its name for nothing; what it wants in quick- 
ness it makes up in assiduity; though by the help of eight 
mules which drew it, we sometimes went at a brisk pace too; 
ha\'ing pass'd from Lyons to Marseilles, which they call 
a hundred leagues, in three days and a half." ^ 

"The stage-coach or diligence used in this country," says 
Nugent, "is much more convenient than those in England. 
It has eight chairs, neither of which touch one another, for 

54 



A nifJfiFCNCE 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

the passcn^'crs to sit in; and each chair has a sash-window 
to put up and take the air, or shut, as the passen^fcr pleases. 
No body rides with their face backwards, but turned toward 
the horses. They chan^'c horses every twelve miles,' and 
go sometimes ninety or one hundred miles a day." * 

The diligence grew in bulk and in massiveness until it 
was as large as an ordinary load of hay, carried twenty or 
thirty passengers, and weighed five tons.^ The equipment 
of this huge machine always included a conductor and a 
postilion. At the opening of the nineteenth century John 
Carr pictures the overgrown vehicle of his day going be- 
tween Cherbourg and Rouen: "At daybreak we seated 
ourselves in the diligence. All the carriages of this descrip- 
tion have the appearance of being the result of the earliest 
efforts in the art of coach building. A more uncouth clumsy 
machine can scarcely be imagined." In the front is a cabri- 
olet fixed to the body of the coach, for the accommodation 
of three passengers, who are protected from the rain above 
by the projecting roof of the coach, and in front by two 
heavy curtains of leather, well oiled, and smelling some- 
what offensively, fastened to the roof. The inside, which 
is capacious and lofty, and will hold six people with great 
comfort, is lined with leather padded, and surrounded with 
little pockets, in which the travellers deposit their bread, 
snuff, night caps and pocket handkerchiefs, which generally 
enjoy each others' company in the same delicate depositary. 
From the roof depends a large net work, which is generally 
crowded with hats, swords, and band-boxes; the whole is 
convenient, and when all parties are seated and arranged, 
the accommodations are by no means unpleasant. Upon 
the roof, on the outside, is the imperial, which is generally 
filled with six or seven persons more, and a heap of luggage, 
which latter also occupies the basket, and generally pre- 
sents a pile, half as high again as the coach, which is se- 
cured by ropes and chains, tightened by a large iron wind- 
lass, which also constitutes another appendage of this 
moving mass. The body of the carriage rests upon 
large thongs of leather, fastened to heavy blocks of 

55 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

wood, instead of springs, and the whole is drawn by seven 
horses." ^ 

The charge for transportation in the diligence 
often included all the expenses of the traveler on 
the way.^ 

Besides the diligence, we note as public conveyances the 
carosse and the coche. "The carosse," says Nugent, "is 
not unlike our stage-coach, containing room for six pas- 
sengers, but does not move so quick, and is more emljiar- 
rassed with goods and baggage. The coche is a large heavy 
machine, which serves the use both of waggon and coach; 
it is long-shaped, and provided with windows at the sides, 
containing generally sixteen passengers, viz., twelve in the 
body of the coach, sitting two abreast, and two each side 
at the door of the entrance, a seat being provided there for 
that purpose. It is furnished with two large conveniencies, 
one before and another behind, which are made of basket 
wicker, and are therefore called baskets. Into these bas- 
kets they put large quantities of goods, which makes it 
very heavy in drawing. Sometimes both the baskets are 
filled with goods, and sometimes the fore one is left 
empty for passengers, in which the fare is less than in the 
coach, and they have a covering overhead to preserve 
them from the injury of the weather. Its motion is but 
slow, seldom exceeding that of a brisk walk, and as the 
roads are generally paved with large stone, this kind of 
vehicle is generally very jumbling and disagreeable.^ The 
expence of travelling with the carosse or stage-coach is 
less than half the sum of riding post, but then you are to 
make an allowance for being longer upon the road. As 
for the particular fares of stage-coaches, we shall mention 
them in each journey ; only we are to observe here that the 
expence of baggage is paid apart, and is generally three sols 
for every pound above fourteen or fifteen pound weight, 
which is free. With regard to provisions on the road, your 
safest way, if you travel post, is to know the price of every- 
thing before you order it; but with the stage-coach, your 
meals are generally regulated at fixed prices, as with us; 

S6 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

your entertainment is exceeding good, and the whole ex- 
pence seldom exceeds five or six livres a day." ' 

But as the route of the diligence and the stage-coach was 
fixed, there was sometimes an advantage in being able to 
direct one's own course, and to make use of a voiturin, 
who represented in France the familiar vetturino system of 
Italy. "These voiturins," says Smith, "are to be met with 
throughout Italy and the south of France. They under- 
take the conveyance of a traveller, for a certain sum, in a 
fixed time, to the place of his destination; and, if desired, 
will pay all his expenses at the inns by the way; which we 
afterwards found is the best method. This mode is much 
cheaper, and infinitely less embarrassing, than travelling 
post. It requires, indeed, very early rising, and is very 
slow; but the latter was no objection to us, as we could 
alight at pleasure to botanize, and walk full as fast as 
our horses or mules, till we were tired." 2 

But a great number of tourists elected to go by post. 
From "Calais to this place, Lyons," writes the Earl of 
Cork and Orrery, "we have passed most of our time in post- 
chaises." 3 All the main roads throughout the kingdom 
were minutely divided by the government into posting- 
stages." At the posting-houses one might expect to find 
horses, and usually carriages, for hire at a fixed rate.^ 
Wealthy travelers of the nobility or of some importance 
used to be preceded by an avant-courier who would order 
horses to be in waiting for them.^ But at Mirepoix, a town 
of fifteen thousand inhabitants, Arthur Young could find 
no carriages at all for hire.^ 

As the posting-service was strictly regulated, the guide- 
books gave minute directions to the tourist, just landed at 
Calais, as to what he should do: "At the post house, which 
is the Silver Lion, kept by Mr. Grandsire, you bargain for 
a chaise to go to Paris; if there be only one person, he 
will let you have a pretty good one for two guineas and a 
half; and if two, he will have three guineas. You have 
the privilege of carrying a great weight of portmanteaus 
and trunks behind your post-chaise; but their horses are 

57 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

very indifferent, so that it is not advisable to encumber 
3^ourself with too much baggage, but rather to send it by 
the stage-coach, which sets out twice a week from Calais 
to Paris, and is seven days upon the road; the fare is thirty 
livres for each passenger, and three sols per pound for his 
baggage. The coach from Paris to Calais and Dunkirk 
sets up at the Grand Cerf, rue S. Denis. The roads from 
Calais to Paris are pretty good; and you go with any of 
their post-horses very near a post an hour. . . . ^rom 
Calais to Paris are thirty-two posts. . . . Upon the whole, 
for the thirty-two posts you pay, if you are two in com- 
pany, 164 livres, two sols, which is about 61. i6s. 6d. But if 
you are single, the whole cost will be, horses and boys only 
99 livres, two sols, which is about 4/. 65. gVzd. English." ^ 

On the matter of posting Smollett gives also his experi- 
ence, and adds that posting in England is pleasanter, with 
less imposition and expense:- "The post is farmed from 
the king, who lays travellers under contribution for his 
own benefit, and has published a set of oppressive ordi- 
nances, which no stranger nor native dares transgress. The 
postmaster finds nothing but horses and guides: the car- 
riage you yourself must provide. If there are four persons 
within the carriage, you are obliged to have six horses 
and two postillions; and if your servant sits on the out- 
side, either before or behind, you must pay for a seventh. 
You pay double for the first stage from Paris, and twice 
double for passing through Fontainebleau when the court 
is there, as well as at coming to Lyons, and at leaving this 
city." 3 

Of posting in 1739 we have a sketch by the poet Gray, 
who was going from Calais to Boulogne: "In the after- 
noon we took a post-chaise (it still snowing very hard) for 
Boulogne, which was only eighteen miles farther. This 
chaise is a strange sort of conveyance, of much greater use 
than beauty, resembling an ill-shaped chariot, only with 
the door opening before instead of the side; three horses 
draw it, one between the shafts, and the other two on each 
side, on one of which the postillion rides, and drives too. 

S8 



I 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

This vehicle will, upon occasion, go fourscore miles a day, 
but Mr. Walpole, being in no hurry, chooses to make easy 
journeys of it, and they are easy ones indeed; for the 
motion is much like that of a sedan. We go about six 
miles an hour, and commonly change horses at the end of 
it. It is true they are no very graceful steeds, but they go 
well, and through roads which they say are bad for France, 
but to me they seem gravel walks and bowling greens; in 
short, it would be the finest travelling in the world were it 
not for the inns, which are mostly terrible places indeed." * 

Posting certainly had some inconveniences, and com- 
plaints were frequent that the charges were excessive. 
But for the tourist of comfortable income it appears to have 
been the most satisfactory means of travel in France. ^ 
When Morris Birkbeck was in France in 1 8 14, his party was 
not at first entirely pleased with the system, but after- 
wards "found posting not so inconvenient or expensive. 
If you take your own voiture, or hire one for the journey, 
you escape the miserable cabriolets provided by the post- 
masters, and the trouble of changing every seven or ten 
miles. You may take also two horses at forty sous each 
instead of three at thirty sous ; and you save thirty sous a 
stage, which is charged when they furnish a carriage. With 
these precautions, there is not much room to complain of 
French posting." ' 

To avoid a succession of uncomfortable carriages Smol- 
lett's suggestion was worth heeding. "I would advise 
every man who travels through France to bring his own 
vehicle along with him, or at least to purchase one at 
Calais or Boiilogne, where second-hand berlins or chaises 
may generally be had at reasonable rates." * 

Hired private coaches were an expensive luxury, drawn 
as they were by four or six horses, and accompanied by two 
postilions. One's private servant often attended on horse- 
back or on the coach. Smollett when in Paris looked into 
the means of conveyance to the south of France. "When 
I went to the bureau, where alone these voitures are to be 
had, I was given to understand that it would cost me six- 

59 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

niid-twcnty i;;iuiions, atid travel so slow that I .should be ton 
days upon the road. These carriages are let by the same 
persons who fami the diligence; and for this they have an 
exclusive privilege, which makes them very saucy and in- 
solent. When I mentioned my servant, they gave me to 
understand that I must pay two loui'dorcs more for his 
seat upon the coach box." * 

So ponderous were the French coaches that one ran the 
risk of being set on fire several times a day by the friction 
of the wheels.^ Besides this, there was often friction of 
another sort, as we see from the following delicious passage : 
" Through the whole south of France, except in large cities," 
Smollett found "the postilions lazy, lounging, greedy, and 
impertinent. If you chide them for lingering, they will 
continue to delay you the longer : if you chastise them with 
sword, cane, cudgel, or horse-whip.' they will either dis- 
appear entirely, and leave you without resources; or they 
will find means to talce vengeance by overturning your 
carriage. The best method I know of travelling with any 
degree of comfort, is to allow yourself to become the dupe 
of imposition, and stimulate their endeavors by extraor- 
dinary gratifications. I laid down a resolution (and kept 
it) to give no more than four and twent}^ sols per post be- 
tween the twi> postilions; but I am now persuaded that 
for throo-ponco a post more. I should have been much 
better served, and should have performed the journey mth 
greater pleasure." ' 

However one might travel from place to place, a tourist 
of any pretensions was expected in any of the larger cities 
of the Continent to keep a carriage as a visible token of his 
respectability. For example, on going to Paris after having 
subnntlod to the "absolutely requisite" French tailor and 
barber, "the next thing is to get a convenicney to carry 
you abroad, that you may with elegance and ease go and 
see every thing that is curious'in and about Paris. Your 
best way is to have a recommendation to some of those 
people who let coaches out to hire ; and if you are only two 
in company, a chaiiot is most advisable. You may have a 

Oo 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

gay and easy gilt coach or chariot, and a coachman, with a 
good pair of horses, for twelve livres, which is about ten 
shiHings a day, to attend you from seven in the morning till 
midnight, and to carry you to Versailles, etc. This is 
certainly the best way, because their hackney-coaches arc 
dirty and mean, and few people of any fashion, especially 
strangers, either use them or walk much in the streets. 
It is to be observed that you must sign a contract for your 
coach or chariot, to have it a month as your own; the 
lawyer or notary draws the contract by the coach-lender's 
orders, and you pay five shillings for his fee and one shil- 
ling for his clerk, who attends you to get it signed. This 
contract the coachman carries in his pocket, to entitle him 
to drive you out of town to Versailles, etc., for without it 
the coach is not privileged to carry you out of the gates 
of Paris.' But tho' you contract for a month for the 
sake of this privilege, yet you may give up your coach 
at the end of ten days, or a fortnight, paying for the 
days you have had it ; and a fortnight will be long enough 
to carry you to most of the places you want to see in and 
about Paris." ^ 

For going short distances, particularly when attending 
a social gathering in full dress, the tourist in more than 
one Continental city found a sedan chair useful. But, 
obviously, this was a convenience of very limited range. 



II 

Italy 

From what has been said of the Italian roads it is obvious 
that none but a very substantial conveyance could be 
trusted to bring the traveler safely to his destination. 
What the carriages were like we learn from many descrip- 
tions. Now and then, as in France, the tourist ventured to 
travel in his own private vehicle. In such a case, Baretti 
recommends that "a traveller ought to have his post-chaise 
not only strongly built to resist the many stony roads in 

6i 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

Italy, but likewise have it so contrived as to be easily taken 
to pieces where it must inevitably be disjoined in order to 
pass a mountain or to be put into a felucca; that is, in going 
over mount Cenis, or from some part of southern France to 
Genoa." ^ 

In more detail Mariana Starke advises that "those Per- 
sons who design to travel much in Italy should provide 
themselves with a strong, low-hung, doubled-perched Eng- 
lish coach or post-chaise, with well-seasoned corded springs," 
and iron axle-trees, two drag-chains with iron shoes, ... 
tools for repairing ... a carriage, ... a sword-case . . . 
two moderate-sized trunks," ^ etc. 

Arthur Young, however, was warned by men who had 
traveled much in Italy, that he must not think of going 
thither in his own one-horse chaise.* "To watch my 
horse being fed would, they assured me, take up abundantly 
too much time, and if it was omitted, with respect to hay, 
as well as oats, both would be equally stolen. There are 
also parts of Italy where travelling alone, as I did, would be 
very unsafe, from the number of robbers that infest the 
roads. Persuaded by the opinions of persons, who I sup- 
pose must know much better than myself, I had determined 
to sell my mare and chaise, and travel in Italy by the 
veturini, who are to be had it seems everywhere, and at a 
cheap rate." ^ 

When he arrived at Toulon, Young accordingly tagged 
his chaise with a large label, "A vendre," and finally sold 
it and his mare for twenty-two louis — ten louis less than 
they had cost him at Paris. "I had next to consider the 
method to get to Nice [from Toulon]; and will it be be- 
lieved, that from Marseilles with 100,000 souls, and Tou- 
lon with 30.000, lying in the great road to Antibes, Nice, 
and Italy, there is no diligence or regular voiture. A gen- 
tleman at the table d'hdte assured me they asked him 
three louis for a place in a voiture to Antibes, and to wait 
till some other person would give three more for another 
seat. To a person accustomed to the infinity of machines 
that fly about England, in all directions, this must appear 

62 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

hardly credible. Such great cities in France have not the 
hundredth part of connection and communication with 
each other that much inferior places enjoy with us." ^ 

Obviously, with but such a happy-go-lucky system on a 
main road between France and Italy, nothing better could 
be expected on the less traveled roads of Italy itself. The 
ordinary accommodations are briefly outlined by Nugent 
in the "Grand Tour." ^ and these we may supplement with 
more detail: "There are several ways of travelHng in 
Italy, such as with post-horses; with a vettura or hired 
coach or calash in which they do not change horses; and, 
finally, with a procaccio or stage-coach that undertakes 
to furnish passengers with provisions and necessary accom- 
modations on the road. Travelling post you pay five julios 
a horse at each post (a julio is about sixpence) and two 
julios to the postilion. The price of the vetturas is fixed 
differently according to the difference of province or road; 
and the same may be said of the procaccios, which is 
much the worst way of travelling." ' 

The posting-system had the convenience of permitting the 
traveler to pay his way to the place he wished to visit,* 
without placing upon him further responsibility for the 
carriage or the driver. Well organized as the system was, 
it did not, however, prevent occasional annoyance that 
stirred the wrath of irritable tourists. "Of all the people 
I have ever seen," said Smollett, "the hostlers, postilions 
and other fellows, hanging about the post-houses in Italy, 
are the most greedy, impertinent, and provoking." ^ 

Some of the petty regulations, moreover, were un- 
questionably very exasperating; and to avoid them De La 
Lande advises the traveler going from France to take a 
carriage straight through from Lyons to Turin. ^ He 
remarks: "It is a rule at Chamb^ry, as in the rest of Italy, 
that when one arrives by post one must continue in the 
same fashion or spend three nights in the place where one 
arrives, if one wishes to take drivers." ^ In the reverse 
direction, "Post-masters at Turin are not to furnish trav- 
ellers with horses without a licence from the secretary of 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

state for forcii::n aflairs; and those in the pro\'inccs, from 
the governors or chief magistrate of the place. No person, 
w-ithout a particular order, is permitted to ride post without 
a postilion. None are suffered to pass by a post-house 
without changing horses, or to go beyond the frontiers in 
any other carriage but the usual post- waggon. It is an 
inconvenience to travellers, that, though they come by 
the post, they are not pennitted to proceed in another car- 
riage without staj-ing three days in the place whei^ the 
stage sots out from." ^ 

Sometimes post-horses were lacldng, as was once the 
case when Dr. Moore was in a hilly district. But in this 
instance their place was taken by "throe cart-horses and 
two oxon, which wore roliovod in the most mountainous 
part of the road by bufTalos. There is a brood of these 
animals in this country; they are strong, hardy, and 
docile, and found preferable to either horses or oxon, for 
ploughing in a rough and hill}' country. " ^ In more than one 
part of the country, particularly in the first third of the 
eighteenth century, the main dependence, indeed, was upon 
oxen or buffaloes.' 

All in all, however, in the second half of the century, as 
Baretti remarks, "The fact is, that the post-horses are in 
general very good all over Italy, and that our postillions 
generally drive at a great rate, trotting their horses on 
any ascent, and galloping on flat ground rather in a des- 
perado way than other\vise." ■* 

Tourists who wished to escape the necessity of looldng af- 
ter themselves or their vehicle commonly arranged matters 
with a vctturino or his agent. We have numerous accounts 
of the journeys talcen in this way, for until the intro- 
duction of railways it was the system ordinarily followed. 
Accounts dating from the early nineteenth century agree 
in general vdth those of a century or two earlier.* Bayard 
Taylor in 1845 went in substantially the same fashion as 
Alisson in the seventeenth century. Says Misson: "We 
agreed at Rome to be carried in calashes, and to have all 
our charges borne dming the space of eleven days, from 

64 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

Rome to Florence, by the way of Viterbo, vSienna, Leghorn, 
Pisa, Lucca, and Pistoia, for six Italian pistoles apiece; 
which was somewhat too dear a rate, tho', 'tis true, calashes 
were very scarce at Rome when we left it." ' 

Taylor, in his turn, remarks: "Travelling with a vetturino 
is unquestionably the pleasantest way of seeing Italy. The 
easy rate of the journey allows time for becoming well ac- 
quainted with the country, and the tourist is freed from the 
annoyance of quarrelling with cheating landlords. A trans- 
lation of our written contract will best explain this mode 
of travelling : ' Our contract is, to be conducted to Rome for 
the sum of twenty francs each, say 20/. and the buona mano, 
if we are well served. We must have from the vetturino, 
Giuseppe Nerpiti, supper each night, a free chamber with 
two beds, and fire, until we shall arrive at Rome. I Gero- 
nymo Sartarelli, steward of the Inn of the White Cross, 
at Foligno, in testimony of the above contract.'" * 

In this fashion James Edward Smith made his tour in 
1786 from Pisa to Florence and thence to Rome. His 
carriage had two wheels and a speed of about four miles 
an hour. ' ' We engaged a voiturin to convey us both (from 
Pisa) to Florence, forty-nine miles, for fifty pauls (not 
twenty-five shillings), to be fed Vjy the way into the bar- 
gain. To our astonishment, we were excellently accom- 
modated ; and we made use of this same honest fellow, whose 
name was Diego Baroncello, to carry us over most parts 
of Italy .^ We never had a word of dispute all the way." * 

Most tourists who could afford the time and the money 
went as far as Naples, commonly with a vetturino. The 
invaluable Misson ^ tells us: "The journey from Rome to 
Naples is usually perform'd thus: the travellers hire either 
horses or carriages, or both together, that they may have 
the advantage of easing themselves by change: and the 
person with whom they agree at Rome, every passenger 
paying fifteen piasters,^ obliges himself to give them eight 
meals in their journey outwards, and as many in their re- 
turn; to stay five whole days at Naples, to pay the boat 
at Cajeta, to lend his horses one day to Vesuvius, and 

65 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

another to Puzzolo; both which arc comprehended in the 
five to be spent at Naples. Thus the whole journey is 
perfomi'd in fifteen days; on the last of which they retuni 
to Rome." 

The German Keysler finds fault with the price and the 
length of time required for the journey: " In travellini^ from 
Rome to Naples it is very inconvenient to go with the 
vetturini; for though the road they take lies over Monte 
Cassino. and consequently gives one an opportunely of 
seeing the celebrated Benedictine monastery on that hill; 
yet it is attended with the mortification of being five days 
on the road and papng the vetturini an extraordinary 
price for their loss of time.* In the months of February 
and March a person must be very expeditious to travel 
seven stages in a post-chaise from sun-rising to sunset; 
but in summer the seventeen stages and a half between 
Rome and Naples are easily performed in two days. For 
the two chaise-horses at every stage within the Neapolitan 
territories, one pays eleven carlini, and half as much for 
the chaise, if wanted." ^ 

In place of going with a vctturino, "It is more adWsable," 
says Nugent, "to make use of the procaccio^ or ordinary 
carrier from Rome to Naples, with whom they ma>- agree 
for seven crowns, for which he gives them seven meals, 
and carries them thither in five days. Those who chuse 
the first method with the vetturino are obUged to come 
back the same way they went, which is not so agxeeable 
to a curious traveller. But gentlemen who have not agreed 
with the carrier may in their return leave the direct road 
and travel further within land, on the right side of it, 
hiring horses from to\NTi to town. With the vetturino from 
Rome to Naples, you pay five crowns a horse, fifteen for a 
calash, and eighteen for a litter. The road is generally bad. 
and the accommodations none of the best." ^ 

Obviously, the satisfaction of a traveler who went with 
a vetturino would largely depend upon the fairness and 
honesty of the conductor. An unscrupulous fellow had 
it in his power to cause the traveler great annoyance and 

66 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

discomfort. Nugent gives warning that if the coachman 
agrees to provide the food, passengers are in danger of 
short commons. And in the same tenor HazHtt says:' 
"The vetturino owners . . . bargain to provide you for a 
certain sum and then billet you upon the innkeepers for 
as httle as they can." ^ a further oh^jection, says Nugent, 
IS that the "coachman in winter travels very often before 
It IS day,« and after it is dark, in order to get to his station 
where he expects to find his account in the reckoning " * 
All m all, says Goethe, "It is but sorry travelling with a 
vettunno, it is always best to follow at one's ease on foot 
In this way I travelled from Ferrara to this place" s — 
i.e., Assisi. Of course, Goethe was a poet and an athlete 
m the pride of youth, but his opinion must have been shared 
by many a weary traveler. 

With all its drawbacks, the vetturino system afforded a 
passable means of conveyance. One other system, how- 
ever, was preferred by many travelers on account of its 
greater independence. But Smollett, as we might expect, 
comments upon the inconvenience « of frequently shifting 
the baggage, and bestows a characteristic word upon the 
vehicle: "The chaise or calesse of this country is a wretched 
machine with two wheels, as uneasy as a common cart, 
being indeed no other than what we should call in England 
a very ill-contrived one-horse chair, narrow, naked, shat- 
tered and shabby." ' 

According to Misson « the shafts of the Roman calashes 
were "at least fifteen feet long, and consequently 'tis im- 
possible to turn the calash in a narrow way." Even 
James Edward Smith bestows very moderate praise upon 
the calash. "Nothing is more ridiculous to an English- 
man than the manner of driving these vehicles. We 
were allowed only to hold the reins, or rather ropes, and 
our dnver stood behind, brandishing the whip over our 
heads." 9 

From our survey it is clear that no method of travel in 
Italy was ideal. But on the whole the balance seems to 
be m favor of the cambiaiura. This, too, is the opinion of 

67 



ETGHTFENTH CENTURY CAKHI AGES 

Nu,i:ot\t. whose \\-ido ox(>orionce xway he allowed to count 
for moa^ thati the utterances of tlie ever-irritable Stnollett. 
Nugent's view, tnoreover. ajjjces so closely with Missou's 
that he has borrowed tnauy of the older writer's very 
phrases. " But to return to the carriaj^es; tlie best way . . . 
of travellinij in this country is with the cambiatura. where 
it can be had. which is only in the ecclesiastical state, in 
Tuscany, and in the dutchies of Partua and Modena. The 
price of the cambiat\ira is generally at the rate of two^ulios 
a horse each post.* The v:jcatest conveniency of this way 
of travelliui^ is that you may stop where you please, and 
chaui^e your horses or calash at every canibiatura. without 
bein.i: oblitred to pay for their return, and besides you may 
take what time you please to satisfy your curiosity. There 
is room for two people in a calasli, which is a much better 
way of travelliui:: than on horseback, because a person has 
the advantage of being skreened from the sun aiui weather, 
and he is allowed to carry a portmanteau fastened to it of 
200 weight. But 'tis proper to look from time to time to 
the portmanteau, or to make a ser\'ant follow the calash 
on horseback, in order to take qwe of the baggage; though 
this trouble may in great measurc be prevented by fasten- 
ing the portmanteau to the calash with an iron chain and 
a padlock, as is frequently done behind post-chaises in 
Germany. The t>*ing and untx-ing of the portmanteau at 
every cambiatura is a necessary piece of trouble that at- 
tends this way of travelling; wherefore those who have a 
long journey to make, and intend not to stop on the road, 
or only to make a short stay, ought always to agree with 
one Vetturino for the whole passage. But the best way is 
to have a calash of your own." ' 

III 

Germany 

To pass from the well-ordered system of transportation 
in France to the primitive svstcm of Germany seemed to 

68 



i 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY CARRIAGES 

most travelers almost like j^oing from civilization to bar- 
barism. Even Italy sustainorl without much difficulty a 
comparison with Germany in this particular. 

The reasons for the backward condition of Germany we 
have considered in some detail elsewhere, but they are 
worth bearing in mind, "Germany," says Coj^an at the 
end of the c-i^htcenth century, "is but thinly inhabited in 
proportion to its ^reat extent; exceptinj.^ on the borders of 
the Rhine, the lar^e towns are comparatively few, and at a 
great distance from each other;"' and by Germany he 
meant not only what we now call Germany, but also the 
Teutonic regions of Austria. Communication at a distance 
was extremely difficult, and in winter practically impossi- 
ble. The natural results of isolation followed. Particu- 
lari.sm held sway in every part of the Empire. Moreover, 
almost every detail that we learn about German life in 
the eighteenth century strengthens the conviction that for 
the average burgher it was the day of small things. Trade 
was limited, and manufacturing enterprises were few. 
Incentives to travel for business or for pleasure were, in 
comparison with our time, strangely lacking. The country 
in various parts impressed strangers as being old-fashioned 
and very backward in its ways. Mariana Starke, in going 
from Italy to Vienna in 1798, oVjserved that "The passing 
through this part of Germany seenas like living some 
hundred years ago in England; as the dresses, customs, and 
manners of the people precisely resemble those of our an- 
cestors." ^ 

Great cities there were, like Berlin and Hamburg and 
Leipsic and Vienna, where wealth and luxury abounded, 
and petty courts like Anspach and Cassel and Karlsruhe 
at least suggested the lavish display of Versailles, but the 
task of going from one city to another was the reverse of 
inviting. In some parts of Germany where one might rea- 
sonably have expected adequate means of transportation, 
there was a very painful lack.^ As we have already seen, 
the roads in general were very inferior, making "it down- 
right misery to travel in bad weather." * 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

In selecting the means of transportation the choice was 
between the rough, clumsy public vehicles and one's pri- 
vate carriage. A posting- wagon meant something very 
different in Germany from what it did in France or even 
Italy, and was practically a comfortless sort of stage- 
coach. For the public posting- wagons of Germany no 
one has a good word. Misson calls them "a miserable 
sort of cart," and adds: "They often move very slowly, 
but to make amends, they jog on night and day. This is 
the most troublesome of all carriages, as I found it to my 
cost." 1 

Travelers throughout the eighteenth century and even 
much later are in entire accord with Misson. Nugent does, 
indeed, say: "There is no country in Europe where the 
post is under better regulation than in Germany," but he 
immediately adds: "The common way of travelling is in 
machines which they call post-waggons,'^ and which very 
well deserve that denomination. These are little better 
than common carts, with seats made for the passengers, 
without any covering, except in Hesse Cassel, and a few 
other places. They go but a slow pace, not much above 
three miles an hour, and what is stiirmore inconvenient to 
passengers, they jog on day and night, winter and summer, 
rain or snow, till they arrive at the place appointed. . . . 
But this is a way of travelling recommendable to those 
only who cannot be at the expense of a more commodious 
manner." ^ 

If the three-mile rate had been actually kept up day and 
night, one would of course have covered seventy miles or 
more in twenty-four hours. But such dizzy speed was not 
always possible, and sometimes the record for a day did 
not exceed eighteen miles. 

As for the companions of one's journey in the post-wagon 
some travelers are not over-enthusiastic. "My company 
consisted of a swine of an Oldenburgh dealer in horses, a 
clodpole Bremen broker, and a pretty female piece of 
flesh, mere dead flesh, lying before me on the straw. There 
was not a word spoke all the way from Gottingen here 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

[Cassel], so that if the dulcis et alia quies had not been now 
and then interrupted by coughing, sneezing, belching, and 
the like, I should not have known that I had company 
with me." * 

The Englishman Russell traveling in Germany in 1828 
found the post-wagon to be still of the eighteenth-century 
type. In going through the Rhine region he remarks: 
"What the Germans call a DiUgence or Postwagen, drag- 
ging its slow length through this delicious scene, is' a bad 
feature in the picture. Much as we laugh at the meagre 
cattle, the knotted rope-harness, and lumbering paces of 
the machines which bear the same name in France, the 
French have outstripped their less alert neighbours in 
everything that regards neatness, and comfort, and expe- 
dition. The German carriage resembles the French one, 
but is still more clumsy and unwieldy." 2 

The luggage, towering on high like a "castle" as large 
as the wagon itself, was secured by chains. Inside the 
wagon sat six passengers, and with the guard sat two more. 
Four horses slowly dragged the great load, while from all the 
openings of the vehicle poured out in dense clouds the smoke 
of vile tobacco. Naturally enough, the Englishman trav- 
eling for pleasure and not as a penance was warned in 
advance not to use the public post- wagons. "The only 
way of travelling with comfort through Germany," says 
the author of the "Tour in Germany," ^ "is in a chaise of 
your own and with post-horses." This merely repeats the 
advice of Nugent, who points out that "then a person is 
at liberty to stop at what station he pleases, and as long 
as he pleases." ^ He remarks, too, that by having a chaise 
to one's self one saves "the trouble of tying and untying 
the baggage; because when a person hires a chaise of the 
post-office, he must change it at every stage, which is 
vastly inconvenient." ^ 

Sometimes one arranged to travel in a post-chaise, but 
bargained to have all expenses on the road covered for a 
fixed sum. With an arrangement of this sort Mariana 
Starke, in April of 1798, left Florence for Dresden, "with 

71 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

a light strong German post-chaise unloaded, and a Voi- 
turin's coach for our baggage, each carriage being usually 
drawn by three mules ; and we gave for six of these animals, 
from Florence to Hamburg, three hundred and thirty 
Tuscan sequins; the Voiturin finding supper and beds for 
four Persons, and likewise defraying the expense of bar- 
riers, ferry-boats, guides, drivers, and mules. We paid a 
couple of florins a day for our dinner, and one florin a day 
to servants at inns, unless our carriages were guafded, 
when we usually gave two florins, and we allowed three 
sequins a day for the mules whenever we chose to stop. 
Buonamano to the drivers was not included in our bargain, 
and to these men (who behaved particularly well) we gave 
sixty sequins." ^ 

Those who made the long journey from Hamburg to 
Vienna — nearly five hundred and fifty miles — commonly 
went in summer by way of Nuremberg and Ratisbon, and 
if they chose they could go by public conveyance. The 
conveyance was typical for the whole of Germany. "There 
is a stage-coach, which sets out from Hamburg to Nuren- 
berg on Saturday evening, at the shutting of the gates; it 
goes through Brunswic, Wolfembuttel, Erfurt, Bamberg, 
&c., and comes back to Hamburg on Tuesday morning. 
This coach sets up at Hamburg at the Swan by the change. 
'Tis common for travellers to agree with the coachman for 
their provisions as well as for their passage. The fare is 
settled thus: From Hamburg to Nurenberg for passage 
and pro\'isions twenty dollars," etc.^ But we need hardly 
follow the tedious detail to the end. 



IV 

The Low Countries 

One could not go far in the diminutive Low Countries 
without getting over the frontier, but within the narrow 
limits one could travel a great deal and with great con- 
venience. Much of the travel was by water, but there was 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

also considerable use of wheeled carriages. In Flanders, 
as in Holland, canals were frequent; and "most of the 
large towns" had "stage coaches, called diligences from 
their expedition." ^ A tourist in 1773 indicated how keen 
was the competition for passengers, and how impartial was 
the award of the prize. "We left Helvoet on Monday 
morning in a stage waggon. All the waggoners in town were 
summoned by a bell, then dice shaken to see who should 
get the fare. The price is fixed, therefore imposition is 
impossible." ^ 

Post-wagons drawn by three horses went from most of 
the principal towns and communicated with all parts of 
Europe. The carriages were not unduly heavy and, says 
Nugent, were "as expeditious as our stage-coaches."' 
In going from Rotterdam to Antwerp one started at five 
in the morning; the price for one's seat was nine guilders, 
nine stivers, with fifteen pounds of baggage free. Every- 
thing above that weight was charged one stiver a pound.* 

There were regular days for the arrival and departure of 
the post at and from Amsterdam, Brussels, The Hague, 
Rotterdam, and various other points in Europe.^ Thus 
the post arrived at Amsterdam on Sunday "from Germany, 
Cologne, Cleves, Munster, Liege, Gelderland, etc." On 
Tuesdays it came "towards noon" from Spain, Portugal, 
France, Brabant, and Flanders. With Nugent's "Grand 
Tour" in hand, the guide-book that chiefly supplanted 
Misson's, the tourist could easily mark out his route and 
select the proper conveyance. If he were at Arnheim, he 
would find that there starts for "Cologne in Germany, 
every Thursday morning a post-waggon from the Golden 
Swan with goods and passengers to Emmerick, Wesel, 
Dusseldorp, Solingen, Elberfelt, and reaches Cologne by 
Saturday. On Saturday the post-waggon sets out from 
Cologne for Arnheim from the Red Goose in the Egel- 
stein, and passing through the above-mentioned places 
arrives at Arnheim by Tuesday. ' ' ^ Likewise from Arnheim, 
we are informed, there sets out for "Frankfort on the Mayn, 
from the third of March till winter every Sunday morning a 

73 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES 

post-waggon at seven o'clock, which reaches Frankfort the 
next Friday." ' 

Those who preferred a private conveyance to these 
democratic vehicles, could hire carriages gorgeous with 
red velvet and drawn by horses making a fine appearance.^ 

When one hired a post-chaise for one's own use three 
horses at least were required by law. But if more than 
three had been taken for the first stretch, the extra number 
must be paid for until the entire journey was at an*end. 
"Our vanity," says Cogan, who was going from Utrecht to 
Mainz, "induced us to take four horses " as far as Nimeguen. 
When they arrived at Nimeguen, says he, they "were 
obliged to continue, or at least to pay, for the same number; 
nor could we get ourselves purged of this superfluous horse 
until we arrived at Mentz. . . . We were first obliged to 
take four horses; and secondly obliged to pay twelve guil- 
ders for them; which together with the personal tax called 
passagie gelt amounts to about twenty pence per mile for 
horses alone." ' 

In most cities of the Low Countries a carriage of some 
sort was easily obtainable. But at Amsterdam the tourist 
could not ride in a coach "for fear of shaking the houses" * 
— luiless he were a privileged person. At The Hague "very 
handsome hackney-coaches" were to be had for a shilling a 
drive, but chairs were lacking.^ 



74 



CHAPTER VI 

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 



Once fairly started on his journey from city to city, the 
tourist's next most important interest, so far as material 
comfort went, was his food and lodging. Upon the 
eighteenth-century inns travelers have much to remark. 
Indeed, many of the older books of travel devote an inor- 
dinate amount of space to the various houses of entertain- 
ment — not in bestowing words of praise, but in enumer- 
ating the shortcomings of the table or the furnishings. 
When compared with the palaces now at the service of 
travelers in every part of the world, few of the inns of 
that day can be seriously considered as rivals: measured 
by eighteenth-century standards, some were palatial in 
their accommodations and quite good enough for guests of 
any rank. But on the road between towns travelers put up 
with such accommodations as they could get, and those 
were often miserably inadequate. Matters generally im- 
proved somewhat in the course of the eighteenth century, 
but the remarks of Eustace hold true for the entire period 
we are considering: "An English traveller must, the very 
instant he embarks for the Continent, resign many of the 
comforts and conveniencies which he enjoys at home. . . . 
Great will be his disappointment if, on his arrival, he 
expects a warm room, a newspaper, and a well-stored 
larder. These advantages are common enough at home, 
but they are not to be found in any inn on the Continent, 
not even Dessenes ^ at Calais or the Maison Rouge at 
Frankfort. But the principal and most offensive defect 
abroad is the want of cleanliness, a defect in a greater or 
less degree common to all parts of the Continent." ^ 

75 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY INNS 

Other tourists toll the same story: " Aocommodations 
all over the Coutinont" arc "vory itulitToront ; ... it is 
scarcely possible for an invalid to sleep at au\' int\ out of a 
>;Teat town \Nntho\it sxitTerii^i::." ' Wl\ore the i^eneral level 
was so low no forethoui^ht could citable a traveler to tnake 
sure of a satisfactory lods^Sni:.' though he nu^^ht seiul a 
servant ahead to en^^ai^e the best that was to be had. As 
nnght be expected, theiv was great variety in the character 
of the accommodations to be found in ditlerent parts trf the 
Continent, and an accurate general characterization is 
thert^fore ahnost impossible. Holland, with its det\se pop- 
ulation, its standards of neatness, and its ditYused wealth, 
is at one e\tn.Mne. and Italy, ^^'ith its medieval hill townis 
allording tilthy Uxls and ui\eatable food, is at the other. 

The information supplied to travelers in eighteenth- 
century g-uide-Kx^ks is often very suggestive, and nowhere 
n\oa" so than in the passages relating to inns. We read: — 
*'Tra\-ellers who go post should never permit the postillion 
to drive them to such houses as he pleases; ahnost all of 
them have secret motives to prefer some to others; there- 
fore it would Ix" pnident to inquire of the post-masters, or 
inn-keopers of the first reputation, for a list of the best 
houses of accommodation."' "A traveller should always 
lodge in the best imi. because, upon the whole, a good 
lodging will not cost him much more, than if he had chosen 
an indiiYerent one. and he will at least be better served, ^^^th 
an additional security to his property, which is not always 
the case in inferior inns."* "As soon as travellers enter 
into an inn. they should immediately agree for the price of 
the rvx>m. dinner, supper, firing, etc., and never neglect 
this usefxil precaution; otherwise they will often be obliged 
to pay for their negligence in that n?spect an extravagant 
price, especially in Holland and Italy."* 

Beds were of varied character in the countries usually 
\'isited; so \*aried. indeed, that travelers, up to the end of 
the eighteenth century, especially in Gennany and Italy, 
were accustomed to c;vrry their owni bedding.* And even 
where this might not be required, certain precautions 

76 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

were not to be neglected. Berchtold is very specific in his 
warnings : — 

"Travellers being never sure whether the lodgers, who 
slept in the beds before them, were not affected with the 
itch, venereal or other disease, they should make use of a 
preventive of infection: a light coverlet of silk, two pairs 
of sheets, and two dressed hart's skins put together, six 
feet six inches in length, three feet six inches in breadth, 
should be always carried along with them in the box. The 
hart's skin, which is put upon the mattresses, will hinder the 
disagreeable contact, and prevent the noxious exhalations. "» 
The ordinary sheets were laid upon the hart's skin. " Damp 
beds are very often found in inns little visited, and in the 
inns where fire is seldom made: they ought to be carefully 
avoided. . . . Those who travel should examine the beds 
to see whether they are quite dry, and have the bed-clothes 
in their presence put before the fire. If the mattresses are 
suspected, it will be preferable to lie down on dry and 
clean straw." « "Feather beds and counterpanes of cotton 
are very liable to collect noxious exhalations; for this rea- 
son those who travel ought to make use of the hart skins, 
described under the remarks on Inns." ^ 

To avoid other risks, " It is of the greatest importance to 
travellers always to have a room to be in alone, and never 
allow any person (well-known people excepted) to sleep in 
the same apartment, unless absolute necessity compels 
them." '* All readers of the concluding chapter of Sterne's 
"Sentimental Journey" will recall the embarrassing episode 
growing out of the necessity of assigning the same sleeping- 
apartment to tourists of opposite sex. 

The perils of travel are considered in a subsequent chap- 
ter, but we here note: "In lonesome country inns, where 
safety ought always to be suspected, it will be better to per- 
mit the servant to sleep in the same room, and to have a 
wax candle burning the whole night. . . . Pocket door- 
bolts in the form of a cross are applicable to almost all 
sorts of doors, and may on many occasions save the life of 
the traveller, where desperate attempts may be made by 

77 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

needy assassins. ..." Nervous travelers, we learn, may 
put the table w4th chairs on it against the door if bolts are 
lacking. "Such precautions, are, however, less necessary in 
England, but on the Continent they are much more so." 

"It \^^ll not be amiss in such lonesome places, where 
accidents may oblige a traveller to remain the whole night, 
to show his fire-arms to the landlord in a familiar discourse, 
Vknthout acquainting him of his well-grounded suspicion of 
insecurity; and to tell him, with a courageous lool*, that 
you are not afraid of a far superior number of enemies." ' 

In view of the foregoing warnings we see that not all 
inns were models of comfort and that they forced travelers 
to pro\'ide somewhat minutely for personal needs. There 
is, in fact, no more strilcing conmientary on the general lack 
on the Continent of ordinary articles of comfort, not to say 
luxury, than the list of necessaries suggested for the use of 
travelers. As late as 1798 Mariana Starke recommends all 
sorts of things for every family to be pro\dded with on 
leaving England; among them sheets, pillows, blankets, 
towels, pistols, a pocket-knife to eat v\4th, soup, tea, salt, 
spoons, a tea-and-sugar chest, loaf-sugar, mustard, Cay- 
enne-pepper, ginger, nutmegs, oatmeal, sago, plenty of 
medicines, etc., etc.* 

II 

French Inns 

In cleanliness^ and comfort English inns were on the 
whole regarded as superior to the French, though the 
latter were commonly praised by travelers.* Comfort, as 
elsewhere pointed out, was far less generally dillused 
throughout Europe in the eighteenth century than now, 
abounding greatly in one district while strangely lacking 
in another. But the English were the wealthiest people in 
Europe, except perhaps the Dutch, and everyw^here insisted 
upon the best that was to be had. No mere chance was it, 
therefore, that Dcssein's Inn at Calais, where swanns of 
English tourists landed, was one of the most extensive in 

78 



KHiUTKKNTU CKN'I (]P»Y liNNS 

Europe, wilh ":;fiuarcs, ^^'^^(]cnH, shopf^ of all kinf]:^, work- 
shops, and a handsome theatre." ' Entertainment of tour- 
ists was, indeed, on a large scale at Calais, though the town 
was small. Essex counted the II/;tel d'Angletcrre one of 
the best in France. From forty to fifty carriages were 
always ready for guests.' 

In Inrgf; towns good accommodations were usually to he 
found, and if it were our business to make lists ^ we might 
enumerate scores of inns that provided everything one 
could reasonably fx.sk.'' Some were almost unreasonably 
good. Such was the inn at Chalons, with nx^ms "furnished 
throughout with silk and damask, the very linings of the 
rooms and bed covers nr^t excepted." '' Still better was the 
Hotel de Henri IV, at Nantes, over which even the h/jber 
Young waxes enthusiastic and inclines to think "the 
finest inn in Europe." "It cost," says he, "400,000 liv. 
(17,500/.; furnished, and is let at 14,000 liv. per ann. (612/. 
lo.s.), with no rent for the first year. It contains 60 beds 
for masters, and 25 stalls for horses. Some of the apart- 
ments of two rooms, very neat, are 6 liv. a day; one good 
3 liv., but for merchants 5 liv. per diem for dinner, supper, 
wine, and chamber, and 35/. for his horse. It is without 
comparison, the first inn I have seen in France, and very 
cheap." " 

Not merely were palatial establishments of this sort, to 
be founrl here and there, but many neat and comfortable 
little hostelries, of small pretensions and "of the second 
rank in appearance," that were nevertheless "much the 
most comfortable for travellers of the sober sort." ' 

But it would be a serious error to suppose that every inn 
in France was a model. We mu.st not forget that France 
before the Revolution suffered much actual misery, par- 
ticularly in the provinces. No traveler could fail trj see 
some trace of it, and he was fortunate if he had nothing to 
sufTcr himself. Many provincial inns simply continued 
throughout the eighteenth century the state of things exist- 
ing in the seventeenth century, when travel was difficult and 
inns were ill-kept because little patronized. Babeau cites 

79 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

Abraham Goelnitz, who in 1631 went through France on 
foot and on horseback, often going out of the beaten track. 
He notes : "In certain villages, in certain towns even in the 
center of France, the inns lack everything. One can hardly 
find bread and a fire. Beds are wanting." ' 

Particularly defective were "the post-houses," which, 
as one traveler in 1776 remarks, "are not always places of 
reception as with us: many of them are ordinary farm- 
houses ; and when they are inns, they are f requentljv very 
indifferent." ^ In this matter, as in others. Young may 
be trusted to tell the truth as it was. At Moulins, in the 
Loire region, "I went," says he, "to the Belle Image, but 
found it so bad that I left it and went to the Lyon d'Or, 
which is worse. This capital of the Bourbonnois, and on the 
great post road to Italy, has not an inn equal to the little 
village of Chavanne." ^ What one might encounter ofi the 
main routes may be judged from Young's experience at 
Saint-Girons * in the Basses Pyrenees, a town of four or 
five thousand inhabitants, where he was forced to put up 
at a public house undeserving the name of inn. "A 
wretched hag, the demon of beastliness, presides there. I 
laid [!] not rested, in a chamber over a stable, whose efiSu- 
viae [!] through the broken floor were the least offensive of 
the perfumes afforded by this hideous place. It could give 
me but two stale eggs, for which I paid exclusive of all 
other charges, 20/. . . . But the inns all the way from 
Nismes are wretched, except at Lodeve, Gange, Carcasonne, 
and Mirepoix." ^ 

Of the road near Mayres in Ard^che he says: "It con- 
ducts, according to custom, to a miserable inn, but with a 
large stable." * After dining one day at Viviers and passing 
the Rhone, he remarks: "After the wretched inns of the 
Vivarais, dirt, filth, bugs, and starving, to arrive at the 
Hotel de Monsieur, at Montilimart, a great and excellent 
inn, was something like the arrival in France from Spain." ' 

With Young's comments before us we may be the more 
inclined to give credence to the peppery Smollett, whose 
journey antedates Young 's by about a quarter of a century, 

80 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

and who declares that "Through the whole south of 
France, except in large cities, the inns are cold, damp, 
dark, dismal, and dirty; the landlords equally disobliging 
and rapacious; the servants aukward, sluttish and sloth- 
ful." ' 

Particularly shocking to travelers of our day would ap- 
pear the entire lack of sanitary conveniences. In fact, 
until very recently Gallic ideals in matters of personal 
cleanliness and sanitation have called forth unfavorable 
comment from English tourists, but the state of things 
in the eighteenth century one can hardly venture to de- 
scribe. ^ Smollett has a fragrant passage on the "temple 
of Cloacina" connected with the inn at Nimes which 
cannot be quoted, but which is worthy the attention of 
the inquiring reader.^ 

Englishmen were inclined also to be critical about French / 

beds. Nugent warns the traveler : " After you have passed 
Boulogne, you will not find the beds like ours in England; 
for they raise them very high with several thick mattresses : 
their linen is ill-washed and worse dried, so that you must 
take particular care to see the sheets aired." ^ 

With more particularity another Englishman comments 
on the beds in inns: "Two of them are always placed in 
the same room: they consist of a bed of straw at the bot- 
tom, then a large mattrass, then a feather-bed, then an- 
other large mattrass, upon which are the blankets, etc., 
with all which, the bed is so high, that a man with great 
difficulty climbs into it; and, if he were to tumble out of 
it by mischance, he would be in danger of breaking his 
bones upon a brick floor." ^ 

But every traveler was tempted to magnify his experi- 
ence and to regard it as typical. If he found in one city 
that the "beds seemed stuffed with potatoes rather than 
feathers," ^ he easily assumed that French beds were usu- 
ally of the same sort. It is well to remember that Arthur 
Young distinctly says: "Beds are better in France; in 
England they are good only at good inns ; and we have none 
of that torment, which is so perplexing in England, to have 

8i 



KlGHrEENTH-CENTUKY INNS 

the shoots airod." ' Boyoiui qviostioti, howevor. ii\ Fronoh 
beds the hirkins; dovouror was only too common, and made 
the unseasoned traveler w-rithe. Stenie went i'rotn Paris 
to Nimos in i;oj at\d sutTered the usual experietuvs of the 
strani^er. "Good God! we were toasted, roasted. j;riird, 
stow'd. and carbonaded on one side or other all the way — 
aiid boiuL; all done enough (ikwws: cta'ts) in the day, wo were 
ate up at nij;ht by bugs, and other unswept out vennin, 
the legal inhabitants (if length of possession gives right) 
of every iim we lay at." ' 

But if French beds evoked occasional criticism, not nuich 
was to be urged against the Frencli table — at its best. 
Then as now French cookery was famous and to most Eng- 
lish tourists it came as a revelation. "The common cook- 
ery of the French." says Young, "gives great advantage. 
It is tnie they roast every thing to a chip, if they are not 
cautioned, but they give such a number and variety of 
dislics, that if you do not like some there are others to 
please your palate. The desert at a Fretich inn has no 
rival at an English one." ' 

Yet at the wayside inn h\ France the tourist not infre- 
quently encountered gastronomic horrors, or what were 
such to him; and even at well-kept houses more than one 
English tourist longed for the fleshpots of his island home — 
the plain boiled greens, the plain boiled mutton, and the 
unadorned roasts of his native land, guiltless of sauces and 
naked in their simplicity, in preference to the most ambi- 
tious productions of the French chef. ■• Of such was Smollett, 
who. when complaints were to be made, rarely failed. "I 
and my family could not well dispense with our toast in 
the morning, and had no stomach to cat at noon. For my 
owni part. I hate the French cookery, and abominate gar- 
lick. \\'ith which all their ragouts in this part of the country 
are highly seasoned." ' But Smollett stood by no means 
alone. Horace Walpole writes to West from Paris in 1739: 
"At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the 
dishes is patched up with sallads, butter, puff-paste, or some 
such miscarriage of a dish." ^ 

8a 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

In these messes there was a ^reat show of viands, but on 
the tables of too many inns there was no superabundance 
of real food, and there was no shadow of doubt as to when 
the meal had come to a conclusion. An Englishman who 
had lived lon^^ abroad comments sharply in "A Description 
of Holland" ' upon the ni^^^^ardly supply of eatables af- 
forded by many French innkeepers : "They have not heart 
to provide hands^-jmly for their j^uests, and are so saving 
and penurious, the foible and habit of their nation, that 
they count every bit one puts into one's mouth. They are 
as well pleased to see their dishes not touched, as a hearty 
English landlord is displeased, when he thinks his guest 
does not like his victuals." Another earlier fault-finder 
observes: *"Tis a great inconvenience to travel in France 
upon a fish-day; for 'tis a hard matter to get anything to 
eat but stinking fish or rotten eggs." ^ 

A common and well-grounded complaint was that the 
drinking-water was often unfit for use, particularly at 
Paris, where the supply was drawn from the narrow and 
dirty Seine,' and had to be filtered. Those who could 
afford it drank Eau de Roy from Ville d'Avray.* 

English tourists were cautioned also not to go to France 
without a knife and fork, for, says "The Gentleman's 
Guide," ^ "if you neglect taking [them] with you, you'll 
often run the risk of losing your dinner." 

Still another opportunity for criticism was afforded by 
the usual hour for dinner. To gentlemen who felt bound 
to conform to French conventions in order to be admitted 
to society, the noon dinner, "customary all over France, 
except by persons of considerable fashion at Paris," ap- 
peared a serious waste of time." "We dress for dinner in 
England with propriety," says Young, "as the rest of the 
day is dedicated to ease, to converse, and relaxation; but 
by doing it at noon too much time is lost. What is a man 
good for after his silk breeches and stockings are on, his 
hat under his arm, and his head bien poudreV And we 
must grant that Young is right. 

This rapid glance at the eighteenth-century French inn 

83 



KlcniTEENTH CENTURY INNS 

is porha{\s sutrioiont to otmMo us to ronli::o its main foattiros. 
But wo must ixMuombor that as a usual thiui: the inn was 
for the accommodation of the transient v::iiest. Strangers 
tnakiTii: a oonsidorablo stay abroad commonly found quar- 
ters in a private house. As we shall see later, Rheims, 
Tours. Montpellier, Toulouse, Dijon, and other proxnncial 
cities attracted many Kti^lish tourists for weeks and even 
months at a time and atYorded comfortable li\-ini: at prices 
that Enj^lishmen could hardly imagine possible. Most 
English tourists six^nt as much time as they could afford 
in Paris, and if they had an eye to economy they set up a 
modest establishment of their own in hitvd lodgings. Fron\ 
Nugent 's handbook on the grand tour they could leani 
paxnsely what they tnight expect and what they would 
have to furnish: "Vou will hardly get an apartment to 
please you up two pair of stairs for less than 15 or :o lixTCS 
a week. . . . Your servant, for about t\f teen shillings. Eng- 
lish, will immediately set you up for a housekeeper, by 
buvii\g vou a tii\ tea-kettle, some charcoal, ai\d a dish, 
some tea-cups, saucers, niilk-pot. a decanter, and about 
half a dozen glasses : ho \y\\\ also buy you French rolls and 
sugar, and good hyson tea for about 17 li\Tes a pound: 
and so much for breakfast. With regard to your dimiers 
and suppers, if you choose to live in a family way. you had 
best have them drest and sent in by a cook, or from a 
tavern to your lodgings, at your owti hour, and he will 
find you linen and knives. For eight li\Tcs a day, you may 
have for diiiner two good dishes and a soop, which will 
serve four in company, and servants." ^ 



III 

Italian Inns 

In the low quality of the inns the greater part of Italy 
was a close rival to the most neglected regions of Europe. 
The comments in books of travel on the shortcomings of 
It-alian inns, pvarticularly those of countrv towns, present 

84 



EIGHTP:ENTH CENTURY INNS 

no very invitinj^ picture. Some criticism doubtless means 
little more than that the ways of the inns were Italian rather 
than lirij'lish. But at best the averaj.^e hostelry left much 
U) be desired. Eu.stacc had an extended experience through- 
out the peninsula, and he remarks: "In Italy . . . the little 
country inns are dirty, but the ^^reater inns, particularly 
in Rome, Naples, Florence, and Venice, are good, and in 
general the linen is clean, and the beds are excellent. As 
for diet, in country towns, the traveller will find plenty of 
provisions, though seldom prepared according to his taste." * 
Even the fastidious De Brosses is moved to protest against 
indiscriminate condemnation of the accommodations pro- 
vided for travelers in Italy. "Everybody says that the 
inns of Italy are detestable. That is not true. One is very 
well entertained in the better towns. In the villages, to 
be sure, one is badly off; but that is no marvel, it is the 
same in France." ' 

But the comments of Dr. Moore probably express the 
actual effect of Italian hotels upon the average, inexperi- 
enced English tourist. "Strangers . . . whose senses are 
far more powerful than their fancy, when they arc so ill- 
advised as to come so far from home, generally make this 
journey in very ill humour, fretting at Italian Ijcds, fuming 
against Italian cooks, and execrating every poor little 
Italian flea that they meet with on the road." " Dr. Moore 
possibly had in mind the English tourist Sharp, who cer- 
tainly expresses no great delight over his experiences: 
"We arrived at this place [Rome], after a journey of seven 
days, with accommodations uncomfortable enough. Give 
what scope you please to your fancy, you will never imagine 
half the disagreeableness that Italian beds, Italian cooks, 
Italian post-horses, Italian postilions, and Italian nasti- 
ness offer to an Englishman in an Italian journey; much 
more to an English woman. At Turin, Milan, Venice, 
Rome, and, perhaps, two or three other towns, you meet 
with good accommodation; but no words can express the 
wretchedness of the other inns. No other bed but one of 
straw, and next to that a dirty sheet, sprinkled with water, 

8S 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

and, consequently, damp; for a covering you have another 
sheet, as coarse as the first, and as coarse as one of our 
kitchen jack-towels, w4th a dirty coverlet. The bedsted 
consists of four wooden forms, or benches; An English 
Peer and Peeress must lye in this manner, unless they carry 
an upholsterer's shop with them, which is very trouble- 
some. There are, by the bye, no such things as curtains, 
and hardly, from Venice to Rome, that cleanly and most 
useful invention, a privy; so that what should be coll<?cted 
and buried in oblivion, is for ever under your nose and 
eyes." * 

Sharp goes on to damn the dirtiness of the pewter plates 
and dishes, as well as the tablecloths and napkins. The 
food is \'ile. "The bread all the way is exceedingly bad, and 
the butter so rancid, it cannot be touch'd, or even borne 
within the reach of our smell." - " But what is a greater evil 
to travelers than any of the above recited, though not pe- 
culiar to the Loretto road, is the infinite number of gnats, 
bugs, fleas, and lice, which infest us by night and by day. 
You mil grant, after this description of the horrors of an 
Italian journey, that one ought to take no small pleasure 
in treading on classic ground: yet, believe me, I have not 
caricatured; every article of it is literally true." ^ 

Sharp certainly appears to speak from a full heart, and 
his Italian critic Baretti practically admits that the charges 
are in part true. But he points out that Sharp went by an 
"imfrequent road to Rome," and that he might easily 
have obtained from Italians of good social position letters 
of introduction to their friends along the road "who would 
have occasionally accommodated him better than he was 
at the inns, where his Vetturino thought proper to carry 
him; to which inns few Italians of any note resort." * They 
stay, says Baretti, with their friends, or put up at convents. 

Baretti's defense of his compatriots, in this as in some 
other cases, does not squarely meet the criticism of fair- 
minded tourists, who had already anticipated in the sev- 
enteenth century about all that was said against the inns 
of the eighteenth century. "The inns are wretched and 

86 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

ill -furnished," says Burnet, "both for lodging and diet; 
this is the plague of all Italy, when once one hath pass'd 
the Appennines; for except in the great towns, one really 
suffers so much that way, that the pleasure of travelling 
is much abated by the inconveniences that one meets in 
every stage through which he passes." ' 

Misson's general estimate agrees with Burnet's: "Tis 
by no means convenient to travel in companies in Italy; 
the inns are so miserable that oftentimes they can neither 
accommodate their guests with meat nor beds, when they 
are too numerous." ^ 

Nugent improves upon Misson, whose phrasing he slightly 
varies but without acknowledging his source: "But 'tis 
very improper to travel in large companies in Italy, for 
the inns are generally so very miserable that oftentimes 
they can find neither beds nor provisions when the com- 
pany is too numerous. To prevent therefore the inconven- 
iences of a bad lodging, those that do not carry a complete 
bed with them ought at least to make a provision of a light 
quilt, a pillow, a coverlet, and two very fine bed-cloths, 
that they may make but a small bundle." One may travel 
very easily with these conveniences rolled up in a sack, 
lined with waxed cloth, three and a half feet high, and less 
than two in diameter, when full; which, being light, is 
easily carried with the portmanteau and is of no charge. 
"However, if this should appear troublesome, 'tis advis- 
able at least to travel with sheets, and upon coming to an 
indifferent inn you may call for fresh straw and lay a clean 
sheet over it." ^ 

On this matter the English tourist Sharp remarks: "It 
is curious to observe how careless they are of damp sheets 
all through Italy, and the people at inns are so little ap- 
prised of an objection to damp sheets that when you begin 
to beg they would hang them before the fire, they desire 
you will feel how wet they are, being prepossessed that 
you mean they have not been washed." ^ Sharp was an 
inveterate faiilt-finder, whom Baretti rightly took to task 
for misrepresentation, but even Baretti admits: "The 

87 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

beds indeed you mil find bad enough in many places; and 
you must have a care never to sleep but in your own sheets, 
because the inn-keepers, when they are poor, are generally 
ill-provided, and are even rogues into the bargain, that will 
swear no body has slept in the sheets they offer, though 
the contrary is very apparent; nor will it be amiss to have 
a thin mattress of your own, stuffed with feathers or Span- 
ish wool, to throw over the mattresses of the inn." ^ 

Of Italian beds the English tourist James Edward 
Smith is one of the few defenders: "In justice to the poor 
traduced inns of Italy, I think it right to mention here 
that for the first time," in a Httlc village twenty-two miles 
from Viterbo, "we r:ci with damp sheets, and were obliged 
to have them dried. I do not think I ever discovered dirty 
sheets in Italy, though always very scrupulous in my ex- 
aminations on that head. England is certainly the most 
indelicate of all civilized nations with respect to bed and 
table linen. Our great inns are less to be trusted about 
sheets than any abroad." ^ 

In many other ways the inns were sadly lacking in the 
most elementary comfort. Smollett and his party went to 
the inn at San Remo, said to be the best in the place: "We 
ascended by a dark, narrow, steep stair, into a kind of 
public room, with a long table and benches, so dirty and 
miserable that it would disgrace the worst hedge ale-house 
in England. Not a soul appeared to receive us. This is a 
ceremony one must not expect to meet with in France, far 
less in Italy." At last they got some poor rooms, very 
badly furnished, and bad food. He adds: "You must not 
expect cleanliness or conveniency of any land in this coun- 
try. For this accommodation I payed as much as if I 
had been elegantly entertained in the best auberge of 
France or Italy." ^ 

The food was commonly of wretched quality, except in 
the large towns, and one was advised to pick up food for 
luncheons on the way.* Even the large cities could not 
unifonnly be depended upon to make the passing tourist 
comfortable. Genoa was styled "the superb," but "the 

88 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

inns of Genoa," we are told, "afford but indifferent accom- 
modations. The wine is not very excellent, though they 
have it in sealed bottles from the vaults of the republic."* 

The main roads to Rome were more traveled than, per- 
haps, any others in Italy, but we have numberless com- 
plaints that the inns were abominable. Travelers going 
on the main road to Rome from Siena had at least to halt 
at Acquapendcntc. Here, says one tourist: "We were told 
that the man who kept the hostry where we inn'd was the 
most wealthy person in the place. He had only two or three 
ragged servants, and waited at table himself." ^ All the 
way, in fact, "from Sienna to Aquapendente," says Keysler, 
"... the post-houses stand single, and afford but very 
indifferent entertainment." ^ 

Even worse, if possible, was the condition of affairs on 
the central route from Rome to Florence through Terni 
and Perugia. As we might expect, that chronic grumbler 
Smollett on this route quite outdoes himself in describing 
some of his places of entertainment: "Great part of this 
way lies over steep mountains, or along the side of preci- 
pices, which render travelling in a carriage exceeding tedi- 
ous, dreadful, and dangerous; and as for the public houses, 
they are in all respects the most execrable that ever I 
entered. I will venture to say that a common prisoner in 
the Marshalsea or King's-Bench is more cleanly and com- 
modiously lodged than we were in many places on this road. 
The houses are abominably nasty, and generally destitute 
of provision; when eatables were found we were almost 
poisoned by their cookery: their beds were without cur- 
tains or bedstead, and their windows without glass; and 
for this sort of entertainment we payed as much as if we 
had been genteelly lodged and sumptuously treated. I 
repeat again; of all the people I ever knew, the Italians 
are the most villainously rapacious." * 

In going from Perugia to Florence, over the mountains, 
he put up at "a small village, the name of which," he says, 
"I do not remember. The house was dismal and dirty 
beyond all description; the bed-cloaths filthy enough to 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

turn the stomach of a muloteor; and the \nctuals cooked 
in such a manner that ovoti a Hottentot could not have 
beheld them without loathing." • 

All this is movinj: enoui^h. Rut to some extent the ex- 
perience of the traveler was shaped b}* chance. Unfamiliar 
with the country or the language he was often as likely to 
get the worst accommodations as the best. The irascible 
Sharp was as ready to complain as Smollett, but even 
Sharp, on roiurning from Rome to Florence, finds endufable 
inns along the road. He \\Tites from Florence. "We ar- 
rived here last night, after a journey of four days from 
Rome, and found much more agreeable accommodations 
than we experienced cither on the road to Rome from 
Venice, or to Naples from Rome; indeed, to do justice to 
the inns, we met with so much cleanliness, and such good 
beds, that we found ourselves most agreeably disappointed 
in these articles."^ And again: "The country from Bo- 
logna to this place [Alexandria] is a delightful, fertile plain, 
and the accommodations so much better than those we 
meet \\'ith on the road to Rome by the way of Loretto, 
that I desire you will make the distinction betwixt my 
journey thither and my return, whenever you give a char- 
acter of Italy from my letters." ^ 

Bad as were the majority of the country inns north of 
Rome, those between Rome and Naples were worse, and 
they called forth endless complaints.* In general, observes 
Gorani, "the inns of these Icingdoms" — Naples and 
Sicily — "do not deserve to bear the name. Nothing is to 
be found there but water, bad \nne. and bread still worse." * 
On the road between Rome and Naples "they gave us for 
supper." says Misson. "cheese made vnth the milk of 
bullies; and we were forced to lie upon mattresses, which, 
I think, were made with stones of peaches."' "All the 
way to Naples." says the querulous Sharp, "we never once 
crept within the sheets, not daring to encounter the vermin 
and nastiness of those beds." ^ He elsewhere observes: 
"Some of the inns on this road exceed in tilth and bad ac- 
commodations all that I have ever written on that subject 

90 



EIGHTEENTH CENTURY INNS 

before: I do sincerely believe, that they no more think of 
wiping flown a cobweb in a bed-chamber, than our farmers 
do of sweeping them away in an old bam." ^ He speaks 
of whole ceilings covered with spiders. 

The ill-kept inns merely reflected the sluttishness of the 
inhabitants, which must have been notable to call forth the 
following outh)urst from the usually genial Burnet: "It 
amazes a stranger to see in their little towns the whole men 
of the town walking in the market-places in their torn 
cloaks, and doing nothing. And tho' in ^:ome big towns, 
such as Capua, there is but one inn, yet even that is so 
miserable that the bcjit room and bed in it is so bad that 
our footmen in England would make a grievous outcry if 
they were no better lodged. Nor is there any thing to be 
had in them; the wine is intolerable, the bread ill-baked, 
no victuals, except pigeons, and the oil is rotten. In short, 
except one carries his whole provision from Rome or 
Naples, he must resolve to endure a good deal of misery in 
the four days' journey that is between those two places." ' 
What was true of the inns along the great road between 
Rome and Naples was tenfold worse in the extreme South, 
where tourists never ventured. 

With these facts before us we may be led to do injustice 
to the inns in the larger towns and cities where tourists 
made their longer stay. There were some well-known 
hotels at Venice, at Florence, at Bologna,^ and elr^ewhere. 
But De Brosses tells us that at Rome the Aubcrge du 
Mont d'Or, in the Piazza di Spagna, was perhaps the only 
good inn for strangers in the city. He adds in explanation 
that it was not customary to live at a hotel except just 
long enough to enable one to find a furnished room else- 
where.* In Rome travelers generally lodged in or near the 
Piazza di Spagna, which has to this day remained a popular 
quarter with foreigners. Nugent names some of the best 
inns at Rome. "But," he adds, "those who intend to make 
any stay had better hire furnished apartments, which are 
very reasonable; for you may be accommodated with a 
palazzo, as they call it, or a handsome furnished house for 

91 



KRailKKNlH CKNinUY INNS 

about :>ix j^uiiuws a tuotUh." ' Tho tourist who wout to 
Naploswas iutoruM\l that " thoCardiiial's Hat aud thoTtuvo 
Kiii|isfu\^ ivokot\i\l tho host iiuis iu Naples,' at which houses 
tho ICnv^lish i^outlotuou ooinnuM\ly lodi'.o. Tho apart mouts 
au^ iuvlitYotvnt. but tho aoov^muodatious oxtronioly .;;ooil, 
auvl tho i\x^ks i^otuTalh' oxoollout. The folloNvinj; aro sonio 
pivoautiot\s that may bo ot" sorviLV to travollors. It auy 
.v:oi\tlonuin itUouds to inako a oot\sidorablo stay hot\\ tho 
bost way will bo to tako a rt\uiy -furnished lodi^iuv: nii or 
near ;" " >>' Ac c'.istollo. fron\ whence there is a beauti- 
ful pi> .\ . [\\c soa It is a tine open place, with several 
i:ood inns near it, frvnn whoutv provisiotis tnay bo had well 
dn\ssed. and sent hot at any time. As to wine, then^ are 
mai^y omiiiont tnerchants who have noble eollars. and very 
cool, where variety of wines may be had o\coodin>;ly cheap: 
for tlnvo shillii\.i;s at\d iliriV-pont.v a barrel of e\eollot\t wine, 
CvMUainin.^ nine v^allons. may be boui^ht. This him will bo 
of servi(.v to those who diuse a private apa.rtniet\t of their 
own. rather than a public inn. Stran>;ers should be very 
careful in their transactions with the lower class <'>f people, 
who have tho art of docciNnuj; in a superlative doi^ax^. 
lloa^ an^ also a par\\4 of follows who speak a little !>rokon 
ICni^lish. and will otYor their sorvuvs as piidos. or n.iK; s. 
but the Neapolitans of this class exceed their fraternity 
in all other places in knavery." * 

At Venicv\ too. Nui^ent adN-ises "those who ii\totul to 
sp^Mui some months" there "to hiiv a furnished house. 
Then.^ an^ a.lways some apart ti\ents to be let in the Trocura- 
tie. which itukwl is the dean^st. but at the same titne tl\e 
finest, part of the unv.i "*■ In general, he ivcotnmotuls 
takint: furnished aparnueuts in "most other places." 

As already observed, the food to l->o obtained at wayside 
inns was. to Englisli travelers, almost uneatable. Generally 
the kitchen was the least inviting: part of the imi — dirty, 
ill-kept, and ill-supplied.* Burnet's remarks^ late in the 
sovontciMUh century, held true in many districts until the 
end of the eiv;hteonth: "A traveller in many places linds 
almost nothing, and is so ill funiished that if he docs not 

91 



EIGirTEENTH-CENTUHY fNNS 

buy provisions in the }^rr;at towns, he will be (Ajhy/-/] to a 
very :;f;vf:rc <hoX, in a ajuntry that he ::hould tPjink fiow'f] 
with milk and honey." ' 

At all cvf-.nt;, touri;:t:; v/ho consulted their own comfort 
fJid not tru;:t the larder of the wayside inn or even that of 
the more jjretentious hoi^telry in town;; of con::iderable :;ize. 
Mariana Starke's party, when goinj^ to J^alcstrina, to^^k 
provisions with them, thou^^h, as she says, the inn was 
"not very bad." "J'he inn at Frascati was "tolerably 
j(oor]," but it was "advisable . . . for travellers to carry 
cold meat with them."* And this was late in the <:\'/ht- 
eenth century. 

But in the days of slow and crjstly transportation, the 
traveler who could not carry a kitchen and a storehouse; 
with him was usually compelled to accept the unmodified 
fare of each district, and this naturally varied with every 
postinj^-station. In any case, the wealthy Eny]i:\hrn:in, 
accustomed to a j^enerous table with abundance of meat, 
found the usual Italian fare very meaner, and he was not 
reconciled to the lack of roast beef and mutt/jn by the 
abundance of salad and macaroni. The difference in l*:^n;,^- 
lish and Italian temperament and habits was fundamental. 
"Few Italians," says Baretti, "can endure beef at their 
tables. Many Enj<lish ministers residing at our courts anrl 
many Enj^lish gentlemen habituated in the country, find- 
ing the beef to their taste in fx^veral parts of Italy, have 
kindly endeavoured U) bring it into fashion, and would 
persuade us to eat it roasted." ' The place of lxx;f was 
supplied by "kid, dressed in various manners, the staple 
food of the Italian travellers, and which is often so various 
in quality, that some have thought its place is occasionally 
supplied by a canine repref^;ntative." * 

In the midflle of the nineteenth century, we are told, 
"Butter was nearly unknown in Rome forty years since. 
There is now, however, a large dairy near the tomb to 
Cecilia Metella, where it may be had very good. This 
progress is owing to the arrival at Rome of numerous Eng- 
lish travellers. As the Roman flairies, however, do not pro- 

93 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

vide suflicicnt duriui:: the wnntor. a certain quantity is re- 
ceived from Lombardy.' The price is then thirty bajocchi * 
per pound, but in the summer it is only fourteen." ' 

Another notable fact is cited by Baretti in 1766: "We 
have not yet the use of potatoes. An EngHsh consul in 
Venice cultivates them with good success in his fine garden 
not far from Mestre, a place about five miles from Venice: 
but few of his Italian guests vAW touch them." * 

As a striking hint of what might be lacking in realty re- 
mote parts of the country we may note that at the very 
end of the eighteenth century the suggestion is made that: 
"Families who remove from Naples to the neighborhood 
of Sorrento during the summer season would do well to 
take with them vN-ine, vinegar, candles, soap, sugar, tea, 
coffee, and medicines." * Yet Sorrento is only across the 
bay from Naples. At Naples itself tea and sugar were 
very dear.^ 

Even at Tivoli, four or five hours' drive from Rome, and 
very much frequented, one fared badly. "Persons who 
care much about eating should talce meat, bread, and unne, 
with them, as fish and eggs are the only provision likely to 
be found at Tivoli." ' In our own day the entertainment 
set before the transient guest at Tivoli is far from ideal. 

Beyond all question, the English tourist who wished to 
be even moderately satisfied with his daily food was well 
advised to keep close to the main centers of supply. And 
in cities like Turin and Milan and Venice and Padua and 
Florence and Rome he had small ground for complaint. 
The bread of Padua, the wdne of Vicenza, the tripe of Tre- 
viso were proverbially good.^ Moreover, we may well be- 
lieve, that under favorable conditions an eighteenth-century 
tourist who gave himself the necessary trouble could, in 
most of the larger Italian cities, secure quarters that were 
reasonably satisfactory, except perhaps in mnter. But 
what average comfort in winter meant in Italy we may 
judge from the fact that Goethe's room in Naples had no 
fireplace and no chimney, though he was there in Feb- 
ruary.'-' Walpole sutlcred greatly from the cold in Flor- 

94 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

encc, and that, too, in the house of an ambassador. In any 
case, if the tourist chose to play the part of an explorer ofT 
the beaten track, he found himself compelled to live like a 
half-starved peasant and to submit to hardships for which 
he was entirely unprepared. 



IV 

Inns in Germany 

Many of the inns of Germany put a severe strain upon 
the patience of the tourist. In the larger towns he could 
find tolerable accommodations, and in a few cities he fared 
as well as anywhere in Europe. At Frankfort, for example, 
he could go to the Emperor or the Red House, which, "for 
cleanliness, conveniency, and number of apartments," vied 
"with the most magnificent inns in England." ^ Possibly 
one reason for the prosperity of the Frankfort inns was 
that they claimed as a guest every stranger who arrived 
in the city. "The innkeepers," we are told, "will not allow 
a stranger to take up his quarters at a private house, even 
though he eats at his inn." ^ Among the cities having inns 
of high reputation we may note Halberstadt, which in our 
day is merely a small city with an interesting cathedral and 
quaint, half-timbered houses. But a century and a half 
ago it boasted an inn which was in the same class with the 
Three Kings at Augsburg, and one of the largest in Eu- 
rope.^ As for Augsburg, "there are," says Nugent, "sev- 
eral good inns in the city, as the Imperial Court, the Crown, 
the King of the Romans; but the Three Kings is one of the 
best houses in Germany, and by some reckoned the most 
magnificent inn in Europe. Here the nobility assemble 
commonly every evening in a fine hall well lighted, where 
they game, sup and dance." ■* Nuremberg, too, afforded 
already in the time of Misson comfortable entertainment 
for the passing stranger, and so did Munich and Dresden 
and Berlin. 

The inns of Vienna were variously judged, according to 

95 



FIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

the tourist's cxporiotico. but tlioy had a reputation for 
ovorcharjiini::, which is fairly inaiutaiuod in our day. The 
tourist was ad\'ised: "There arc a jn*eat many very good 
inns at Vienna, as the Court of Bavaria, the Golden Crown, 
the Black Kaj^le, the Black Elephant, etc., but in v^encral 
they are very dear. Those who have occasioti to be careful 
in their expenses should therefore board in private houses 
if they intend to make any stay in this capital." ' Mariana 
Starke, at the end of the century, is less complimcnfai-y : 
"The inns of this City are bad and dear; Wolf's is deemed 
the best, and The White Bull once was tolerable; but 
the present nuister is so notorious a Cheat as not to scruple, 
after making; a clear bari;:ain, to de\-iatc from it in every 
particular; besides which, his dinners are so bad that it is 
scarcely possible to eat them. Indeed, the only way of liv- 
ing comfortably at Vienna is to take a private lodging." ^ 
At Hamburg, says the same writer, the inns were "neither 
good nor cheap." . . . Private lodgings could be obtained ; 
though, like the inns, they were "bad imd dear." ' 

But the worst accommodations in the cities were luxu- 
rious in comparison with what was to be found in some of 
the country districts. Says a tourist in the latter part of 
the century, "Nothing can be more UTctched than the 
country you pass through in travelling through West- 
phalia; the wTctched inhabitants uniting poverty with 
pride, live v\-ith their hogs in mud-walled cottages, a dozen 
of which is called, b}' courtesy, a village, surrounded by 
black heaths, and wild uncultivated plains, over which the 
unresisted winds sweep \%-ith a velocity scarce to be con- 
ceived." * This picture is highly colored and not so flatter- 
ing as some contemporary Gennan estimates of Westphalia, 
but conditions in that region were, at all events, not ar- 
ranged primarily for the tourist. "In the small \'illagcs," 
says Ricsbeck. "there are no inns, and a man is forced to 
put up with the small fanners, who have nothing to set 
before him but brandy or potatoes, or some salted bacon 
and brown bread made of bran." * The bacon, it may be 
remarked, was cured in the house, which had "no outlet 

96 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

for smoke but the door." " In regard to bed, [the traveller] 
must tumble pon-mell in a lar^e kind of bam, where the 
landlord and landlady, men and maidservants, and pas- 
sengers of both sexes, cows, sheep, and horses pig all 
to^^ethcr on the ground; and happy he that's accommo- 
dated with comfortable clean straw. ... In cities or 
large towns one is somewhat better entertained; though 
there is little occasion to commend their very best ac- 
commodations." * 

Lady Mary Montagu traveled through Germany in 17 16, 
and, writing from Cologne, says: "We hired horses from 
Nimeguen hither, not having the conveniency of the post, 
and found but very indifferent accommodations at Rein- 
berg, our first stage; but that was nothing to what I suf- 
fered yesterday. We were in hopes to reach Cologn; our 
horses tired at Stamel, three hours from it, where I was 
forced to pass the night in my clothes, in a room not at all 
better than a hovel; for though I have my own bed with 
me, I had no mind to undress, where the wind came from a 
thousand places." * 

When she reached Bohemia in November she pronounced 
it "the most desert of any I have seen in Germany. The 
villages are so poor, and the post-houses so miserable, that 
clean straw and fair water are blessings not always to be 
met with, and better accommodation not to be hoped for. 
Though I carried my own bed with me, I could not some- 
times find a place to set it up in; and I rather chose to 
travel all night, as cold as it is, wrapped up in my furs, 
than to go into the common stoves, which are filled with 
a mixture of all sorts of ill scents." ^ 

What was true of these regions applied equally to the 
south side of the Erzgebirge, where the inns were "not a jot 
better than the Spanish ones." * 

In traveling through Friuli, in the extreme northeast of 
Italy, and the Austrian Duchy of Camiola, Dr. Moore de- 
clares, "The inns are as bad as the roads are good; for 
which reason we chose to sleep on the latter rather than in 
the former, and actually travelled five days and nights 

97 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

without stopping any longer than was necessary to change 
horses." ^ 

As for the neighboring Poland, "The duke of Yoric, 
bishop of Osnabruck, and uncle to his present Majesty King 
George, said a very pertinent thing. . . . 'That he did not 
know a country where travellers were more at home than in 
Poland, because they were always making use of their own 
furniture.'" ^ One hardly found a chair to sit down upon. 

The comments of most tourists in Germany arc anjply 
confirmed by Nugent. Of travel in Germany he says that 
it "is cheaper than in most parts of Europe." But, he adds, 
"The accommodations in general are very indifferent upon 
the road, as well in respect to provisions as lodging; ^ very 
few public houses (except in some provinces, as Saxony 
and Austria) being provided with regular entertainment for 
passengers. ... In their houses one seldom sees a fire,'* 
except in the kitchen; but their rooms are heated by a 
stove or oven to what degree they desire. There is one 
thing very particular to them, that they do not cover 
themselves with bed-clothes, but lay one feather-bed over, 
and another under. This is comfortable enough in winter, 
but how they can bear the feather-beds over them in sum- 
mer, as is generally practised, I cannot conceive." ^ 

The German feather bed occasionally puzzled foreign 
tourists. "Some poor Frenchmen being conducted to their 
bedchamber, one of them espying a feather-bed over, and 
another under, imagined that there was a design to make 
them lie one upon another for want of room. Upon 
which he addressed himself to the servant, and desired him 
to choose one of his lightest companions to put over him, 
alledging that he was not accustomed to lie in this 
manner."* 

Nor did Englishmen take kindly to the German type of 
bed. All readers of Hood's "Up the Rhine" will recall 
the picture of the "worthy uncle" of one of the party 
found in the morning "lying broad awake, on his back, in 
a true German bedstead — a sort of wooden box or trough, 
so much too short for him, that his legs extended half-a- 

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EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

yard beyond it on either side of the foot-board. Above 
him, on his chest and stomach, from his chin to his knees, 
lay a huge squab or cushion, covered with a gay-patterned 
chintz, and ornamented at each comer with a fine tassel, — 
looking equally handsome, glossy, cold, and uncomfort- 
able. For fear of deranging this article, he could only turn 
his eyes towards me as I entered, and when he spoke, it 
was with a voice that seemed weak and broken from ex- 
haustion. 'Frank, I've passed a miserable nighj;. ... I 
have n't — slept — a wink. . . . Did you ever see such a 
thing as that ? ' with a slight nod and roll of his eyes towards 
the cushion. I shook my head. 'If I moved — it fell off; 
and if I did n't, I got — the cramp.' " 

In general, the German conception of comfort was not 
English. "The Germans seldom have a wash-hand basin 
in any of their country inns; and even at Villach, a large 
town, we could not find one : the inn we slept at, however, 
(its sign The Crown,) is clean and good, though tall people 
cannot sleep comfortably either here or in any part of 
Germany: the beds, which are very narrow, being placed 
in wooden frames, or boxes, so short that any body who 
happens to be above five feet high must absolutely sit up 
all night supported by pillows; and this is, in fact, the 
way in which the Germans sleep." ^ 

As for food, travelers were advised to carry provisions 
between towns, for there was no certainty of finding much 
that was good along the road but wine.^ A hundred and 
fifty years ago, to a far greater degree than is now the case, 
inns throughout Europe were dependent upon the supplies 
from the immediate neighborhood, and where this was un- 
productive the inn table provided starvation fare. Par- 
ticularly was this the case in Westphalia, where in the 
towns the traveler fared ill, and "in the public inns along 
the road and in small places" he was entertained with 
"miserable pompemickel, with bacon half raw, and 
wretched beer." ^ 

In more favored regions the guest had an embarrassment 
of choice ; and it is needless to specify more than one or two 

99 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

typical cities. Cogan gives particulars of an elaborate 
dinner, handsomely served, that he got at Diisseldorf, with 
"soups, fish, roast and boiled meats, game, poultry, vege- 
tables, and fruits of various kinds ..." for which he paid 
tenpence.^ Excellent fare also was to be had at Prague; 
"the poultry is peculiarly good; there is a plenty of game 
that is astonishing; no inn so wretched but you have a 
pheasant for your supper, and often partridge soup."^ 
But this same writer warns travelers going from Vienna to 
Prague that the fare along the road is indifferent, and that 
"it would be perhaps more prudent to carry some cold 
provisions with you in your chaise." ^ 

Nor were provisions the only necessaries of the table that 
the fastidious traveler might carry. In journeying through 
Austria, says Mariana Starke, "We were actually obliged 
to purchase a couple of tablecloths and six napkins on our 
journey, so terribly were we annoyed by the dirty linen 
which was produced everywhere but in the very large 
towns." * 

Balancing the good with the bad we may easily see that, 
to one bent upon pleasure, travel in Germany a century 
and a half ago seemed to offer rather more annoyance than 
satisfaction. At all events, comfort was hardly to be 
found outside a few large towns. 



The Inns of the Low Countries 

On some of the inns of the Low Countries much praise 
was bestowed by eighteenth-century travelers. The inns 
of The Hague were declared by one writer to be undoubtedly 
the best in the world.^ Nugent says of the inns or eating- 
houses at Brussels that they "are equal to any in Europe; 
and a stranger has this advantage, that for less than twenty- 
pence English, he knows where to dine at any time betwixt 
twelve and three on seven or eight dishes. The wines are 
very good and cheap; and for six-pence English by the hour, 

100 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

you have a coach that carries you wherever you have a 
mind." ^ 

As a capital city Brussels, which even then aspired in a 
small way to rival Paris, had the most luxiirious inns in 
the Austrian Low Countries, but one could be very com- 
fortable at Ghent, at Bruges, at Li^ge, at Ypres, and in 
many other places. Young pronounces the Concierge at 
Dunkirk "a good inn, as indeed I have found in all Flan- 
ders." 2 

Owing to the frequent intercourse between England and 
Holland there were in more than one Dutch city English 
houses for the entertainment of strangers. Of such houses 
in Amsterdam there were usually two or three .^ At The 
Hague there was "a good house" whither English travelers 
"who speak no language but their own may resort,"^ and 
similar accommodation was to be had at Leyden and es- 
pecially at Rotterdam. Special advantages of these Eng- 
lish houses were that not only were they as cheap as the 
Dutch inns, but they provided "victuals dressed after the 
English way" and were less likely to impose upon unwary 
tourists. The names and character of the houses could be 
learned from the captain of the vessel one crossed on or 
from the merchant to whom one was recommended.^ 

Inns that were thoroughly Dutch were as a rule impreg- 
nated with the smell of tobacco, and on the tea-tables had 
spitting-pots placed "often much too like the cream pot in 
shape." ^ But to the general neatness of the Dutch inns 
all travelers bear witness. The floors were daily scoured 
and sanded, and the silver and pewter and copper platters 
shone like mirrors. Clean linen and soft beds might be 
safely counted on at the inns and pubhc houses throughout 
the country. 

Yet there were some drawbacks. "Their bedsteads, or 
rather cabins in the sides of the wall, are placed so high, 
that a man may break his neck, if he happens to fall out 
of them. Besides, a traveller must be content to lie with 
half a dozen people, or more, in the same room, and be 
disturbed all night long by somebody or other, if the churl 

lOI 



EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY INNS 

of a landlord chooses to have it so. It is true, in the cities 
you are accommodated in a genteeler way. There is no 
disputing with a Dutch innkeeper, either about the reck- 
oning or any other particular; if you find fault with his 
bill (tho' properly spealdng they make no bills, but bring 
in the reckoning by word of mouth) he will immediately 
raise it, and procure a magistrate to levy his demands by 
force." 1 

Strangers making a longer stay than the ordinary tran- 
sient guest found their advantage in taking private lodg- 
ings, which at The Hague cost about the same as in Lon- 
don, and commonly permitted the lodger to board in the 
same house at a moderate expense.' 



103 



CHAPTER VII 

THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 



Up to this point the traveler himself has necessarily been 
crowded into the background, but from now on he must be 
the center of interest. In order to understand the fondness 
of Englishmen for travel in the eighteenth century, we 
must, however, glance for a moment at the growing pros- 
perity of England in the period we are studying and en- 
deavor to realize the conditions that in some sense made 
touring a social obligation. 

The eighteenth century wrought a vast transformation 
in England, though, owing to the lack of startling events 
on English soil, the casual reader of English social history 
too often thinks of the eighteenth century as a time of 
stagnation. Yet the War of the Spanish Succession, the 
great religious revival, the Seven Years' War, the conquest 
of India, the long war with the American colonies, the de- 
velopment of colonies in the four quarters of the globe, and 
the vast increase in commerce — these, and scores of other 
things that might be cited, are enough to prove that Eng- 
lishmen were constantly receiving new impressions from 
every side. 

More than ever before Englishmen were interested in 
foreign lands and travel, and, particularly after the Seven 
Years' War, they flocked to the Continent in great num- 
bers. There were, indeed, few places so remote that one 
could safely count on finding no English tourists there. 
But in general they tended to follow conventional routes 
and to flock together in great numbers in a few centers. 

First and last, the number of English travelers in Italy 
was considerable. Baretti, who published his "Manners 

103 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

and Customs of Italy" in 176S, estimates that in the pre- 
ceding seventeen years "more than ten thousand EngHsh 
(masters and servants) have been running up and down 
Italy." The aggregate appears large, but when we consider 
that this means no more than five or six hundred a j'car 
we see that out of a population of six or seven millions 
scarcely one Englishman in ten thousand found his way to 
Italy. 

"But in the latter half of the century the movement to- 
wards the Continent was much more general, and foreign 
travel became the predominating passion of a large portion 
of the English people. 'Where one Englishman traveled,' 
wrote an acute observer in 1772, 'in the reigns of the first 
two Georges, ten now go on a grand tour. Indeed, to such 
a pitch is the spirit of travelling come in the kingdom, that 
there is scarce a citizen of large fortune but takes a fljnng 
view of France, Italy, and Germany in a summer excur- 
sion.' ^ Gibbon wrote from Lausanne describing the crowd 
of English who were already thronging the beautiful shores 
of Lake Leman, and he mentions that he was told — though 
it seemed to him incredible — that in the summer of 17 85 
more than 40,000 English — masters and servants — were 
on the Continent." - 

But there was a vast difference between the scholars 
who poured into Italy to gamer the new learning at the 
time of the Re\'ival of Letters and the young spendthrifts 
of the eighteenth century who dawdled away their time in 
the capitals of the Continent. Apart from indi\4dual dif- 
ferences, the Englishmen who traveled in the first half of 
the century had much in common. Most of them belonged 
to wealthy, and many to titled, families. In the course 
of the century the increasing wealth of the mercantile and 
professional classes brought a large increase in the number 
of young tourists, with a very short pedigree but a very 
long purse, who washed to gain whatever social distinction 
travel might confer. It is worth noting that, as had long 
been the case, a large proportion of the travelers were men. 
For this many reasons may be given; but, apart from the 

IC4 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

fact that foreign travel was in a peculiar sense regarded as 
a necessary finish for a young gentleman's education, a 
sufficient explanation is found in the conditions under which 
the Continental tour was made. 

As we have elsewhere noted, travel in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries was extremely difficult and some- 
times dangerous, and most women were physically un- 
fitted to endure the strain of a long journey. With the 
increase of comfort and the improvement of roads, travel 
became somewhat easier, and Englishwomen, some of them 
very notable, ventured as far as Rome or Vienna. Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu made the long journey to Con- 
stantinople and back, but up to the end of the eighteenth 
century women were far less numerous than men among 
Continental tourists. Lady Mary, in one of her letters, 
refers to the conclave at Rome, and adds, "We expect after 
it a fresh cargo of English; but, God be praised, I hear of 
no ladies among them." ^ Most parties of tourists afforded 
the same reason for gratitude. 

With abundant wealth and leisure and with a more 
restless disposition than any other people in Europe,^ the 
English were the most active travelers of the eighteenth 
century.^ Men in society were expected to be familiar 
with the principal sights of the Continental cities, and to 
acquire in the chief capitals of Europe that knowledge of 
the world which marked the cosmopolitan. One could not 
be a member of the exclusive Dilettanti Club without being 
acquainted with Italy.'* 

But, obviously, when the grand tour became a conven- 
tional affair and merely an evidence of good breeding, it 
ceased to be primarily educational. In the eighteenth cen- 
tury, as in our own day, hosts of travelers flocked to the 
Continent from England with no other aim than to while 
away a few months or years as idly as possible.^ Paris or 
Turin or Florence or Rome or Berlin in turn afforded them 
entertainment, and they asked for nothing more. Gallic 
smartness of repartee, a knowing air, an easy grace, counted 
for more in the circles in which they moved than familiarity 

105 



THE TOrillSr AND THE TUTOR 

\\-ith art or history or sdoiuv or any other serious subjeet. 
From the point of view of the wealthy yoinig tonrist, under 
no obligation to cam a liNniig and N^th no expectation of 
puttins: his knowledi^e of foiviv;ii eovnUries to any practical 
use. there was no pressiiii: need of seeing anything thor- 
oughly. 

As might be expected, then, great luunbers of travelers 
were at a loss to know how to spend their time abroad. 
The hours passed slowly between meals. They sootr ex- 
hausted what little it\tea^st they had in seeing buildings 
and pictua^s that they wea-* too igiiorant to api>reciate. 
They played cards with one another, took walks or drives 
into the country, and gathea\l in crowds to watch the ar- 
riving and departing diligeiKVS. They n\issed the faiuihar 
English sights, and were as imeasy as cats in a strange gar- 
ret. Englishmen of this type traveled in order to spend 
their n\oney and ease a vacatu mind, and they wen^ as 
dull and inane at Versailles or in the Coliseun\ as they 
were at St. James's or at Newmarket. In so far as they 
had any curiosity, it was a>served for "Palaces, gardens, 
statues, pictures, antiquities, iuui productions of art." * 
which they viewed in a hasty fashion. li\sutT\ciently 
equipped to appaxnate the signiticance of nuich that they 
saw. they drifted from one city to another, and were little 
the wiser for their trouble. 

Our age is cc>mmonly described as a time of restless hurry, 
but we can hardly exceed the haste with which eighteenth- 
century travelers posted through interesting cities without 
stopping. Tlie small distance that they covered in a day 
or week makes their progress as a whole seem leisuaMy,' 
but the aMuoteness of Rome or Vienna compelled them to 
push onward with little opportxmity of seeing on the way 
many sights that were almost under their eyes. In many 
cases tourists neglected important sights through slieer in- 
ditleaMice. Evchni cites a tN-^Mcal instance. At Vicenza, 
sa>*s he. "I would fain have \-isited a PiUaco, called the 
Rotunda, which was a mile out of town. Ix^longing to Count 
Martio Capra ; but one of our companions hastening to be 

io6 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

gone, and little mindin;^ anything save drinking and folly, 
caused us to take coach sooner than we should have done." * 

The unintelli^^cnt way in v/hich many Enj^lish travelers 
employed their time led moralists to regard much of the 
touring of the Ojntinent as mere active idleness: "Too 
many of our young travellers betray the sympU^ms of this 
disease. The precipitation with which they hurry from 
place to place, the shortness of their stay v/here it ought trj 
be of some duration, and its length where no reasons can 
justify it; their little notice of things deserving much con- 
sideration, and their extraordinary attention to matters of 
small moment; their neglect of u:-x;ful or agreeable knowl- 
edge and information, and their shameful preference of 
uninteresting and trivial subjects; these and other instances 
of gross misconduct have long contributed to make travel- 
ling a business of great charge and little profit." ' 

"To lessen the Trouble which young Dilettanti often 
meet with Abroad in their Virtuo!,o Pursuits," says Breval, 
"has been one of my principal Aims in this Undertaking: 
So common it is to see them following a Wild Goose Chace 
under the conduct of some ignorant Tomb-shewer; over- 
looking Things of the greatest Importance, while their 
Attention is taken up with Trifles; and posting thro' a 
Town where they might spend a Week with Pleasure and 
Profit, to make a Month's Halt perhaps at another, which 
would be half a Day's Stop to a Man of Taste and Ex- 
perience." ^ 

To the same purport, but more picturesquely, Cogan re- 
marks: "Should their road lead through Paradirse itself; 
or should they have taken a long and tedious journey ex- 
pressly to see the garden of Eden, it is a question whether 
our impetuous gentlemen would not tip the post-boy half 
a crown extraordinary to mend his pace, as they were driv- 
ing through it!" * 

People of other nationalities did not fail to remark upon 
the pectdiar methods of the English. "The French have 
an opinion," says a contemporary Engli;ih v/riter, "that 
the English are ... in such a violent hurry upon the road, 

107 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

that if some little delay is occasioned, they w-ill rather leave 
their money behind than stay to recover it." ' 

Dupaty, in his "Letters on Italy," observes: "In a hun- 
dred there are not two that seek to instruct themselves. 
To cover leai::iies on land or on water; to talce punch and 
tea at the inns ; to speak ill of all the other nations, and to 
boast without ceasing of their own; that is what the crowd 
of the English call travelling. The post-book is the only 
one in which they instruct themselves." ^ They aftiply 
illustrate Babeau's comment on most travelers, that they 
see only the outsides of things, "monuments rather than 
men, . . . inns rather than houses, . . . routes rather than 
the coimtry." ' 

As the sight-seeing was largely a conventional duty, some 
tourists wasted as little effort upon it as possible. Dr. 
Moore cites an amusing instance of economy of time in see- 
ing Rome. "One j^oung English gentleman, who happens 
not to be violently smitten with the charms of virtu and 
scorns to afTcet what he does not feel, thought that two or 
three hours a day for a month or six weeks together was 
rather too much time to bestow on a piu-suit in which he 
felt no pleasure, and saw very little utility. The only ad- 
vantage which, in his opinion, the greater part of us reaped 
from our six weeks' tour was that we could say we had seen 
a great many fine things wliich he had not seen. Being 
fully conN^nced that the business might be, with a little 
exertion, despatched in a very short space of time, he pre- 
vailed on a proper person to attend him; ordered a post 
chaise and four horses to be ready early in the morning, 
and driving through churches, palaces, villas, and ruins, 
with all possible expedition, he fairly saw, in two days, all 
that we had beheld during our crawling course of six weeks. 
I found afterwards, by the list he kept of what he had done, 
that we had not the advantage of him in a single picture, 
or the most mutilated remnant of a statue." * 

Traveling with haste and inattention as they did, the 
observations of most tourists were of singularly little 
value. We have a good number of eighteenth-century ac- 

loS 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

counts of tours in France and Italy, but, althou^^h a few 
give evidence of competence for the task, the majority do 
little more than repeat the well-worn stock of conventional 
information. Walpole is a typical and very favorah)le ex- 
ample. He was in every fiber a man of the world and ex- 
ceptionally clever; he could not fail to be entertaining if he 
tried; but many of his comments on things abroad are 
strikingly superficial. Two of his letters written in 1740, 
the first in January and the last in October, well illustrate 
how rapidly he lost his keen interest in the very sights he 
had gone so far to see. "I see several things that please 
me calmly, but, a force d'en avoir m, I have left off scream- 
ing Lord! this! and Lord! that! To speak sincerely, 
Calais surprised me more than any thing I have seen since. 
I recollect the joy I used to propose if I could but see the 
Great Duke's gallery; I walk into it now with as little emo- 
tion as I should into St. Paul's." ^ "When I first came 
abroad every thing struck me, and I wrote its history; but 
now I am grown so used to be surprised, that I don't per- 
ceive any flutter in myself when I meet with any novelties; 
curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, 
to fancy that other people know as much of places as one's 
self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not." ^ 
"I have contracted so great an aversion to inns and post- 
chaises, and have so absolutely lost all curiosity, that, 
except the towns in the straight road to Great Britain, I 
shall scarce see a jot more of a foreign land." ^ 

As might be expected, then, the comments in most 
eighteenth-century books of travel are singularly common- 
place. When we exclude a few well-known works, those 
that remain are full of remarks trivial in the extreme.'' 
Were it not laughable, the flippant way in which some trav- 
elers dispose of cities like Padua, Verona, Vicenza, Siena, 
and many others, as containing little or nothing worth see- 
ing, would stir our wrath. At Siena even Dupaty found 
nothing remarkable except the group of the three graces in 
the cathedral.^ 

Another typical instance is Pistoia. Few places of its 

109 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

size in all Europe can boast such a wealth of art and of pic- 
turesque architecture. Yet Evelyn, who was far above the 
average tourist in intelligence, recorded in his Diary 
merely: "We dined at Pistoia, where, besides one church, 
there is Httle observable."' Bromley says of Pistoia: 
"I had Httle time for seeing this place, staying only the 
changing caleshes; it is an old place, and I was assured 
had very little worthy notice." ^ Misson, who should have 
known better, says: "There is nothing in Pistoia that- de- 
serves either the trouble or charge of going out of the way 
to see it." ^ The usually keen-eyed De Brosses remarks, 
"This city, ancient and deserted, appeared to me to have 
nothing remarkable except the baptistery. . . . Opposite 
the baptistery is the cathedral, with the air of a village 
church." * And Northall in 1752 merely observes: "Ruin, 
desolation, and indolence are seen in all the streets, which 
are well paved, with large flags." ^ Even Mariana Starke's 
accounts of notable places are often vague and entirely 
lacking in distinctiveness,^ or they arbitrarily single out 
an item or two and ignore everything else. 

Yet these travellers were far above the average run. 
Those who did not venture to put their experiences into 
print, but who chattered constantly about what they had 
seen, were more fairly representative. On the utterances 
of this type of tourists Steele has some interesting com- 
ments in the "Spectator," No. 474: "But the most irk- 
some Conversation of all others I have met with in the 
Neighborhood, has been among two or three of your Trav- 
ellers, who have overlooked Men and Manners, and have 
passed through France and Italy with the same observation 
that the Carriers and Stage-Coachmen do through Great 
Britain; that is, their Stops and Stages have been regu- 
lated according to the Liquor they have met with in their 
Passages. They indeed remember the Names of abundance 
of Places, with the particular Fineries of certain Churches. 
But their distinguishing Mark is certain Prettinesses of 
Foreign Languages, the Meaning of which they could have 
better express'd in their own. The Entertainment of these 

no 



THE DUOMO AND THE BAPTISTERY, PISTOIA 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

fine Observers, Shakes pear has described to consist In talk- 
ing of the Alps and Apennines, The Pyrenean, and the River 
Po,* and then concludes with a Sigh, Now this is worshipful 
Society." 

Obviously, the offhand estimates of foreign lands that 
such tourists made were often grotesquely false. But the 
more ambitious accounts attempted by travelers who drew 
sweeping conclusions from limited data were little better, 
"An author of this cast, after a slight survey of the prov- 
inces through which he has had occasion to take a short 
ramble, returns home, and snatching up his pen in the rage 
of reformation, fills pages on pages with scurrilous narra- 
tions of pretended absurdities, intermixed with the most 
shocking tales of fancied crimes ; very gravely insisting that 
those crimes and absurdities were not single actions of this 
or that individual, but general pictures of nature in the 
countries through which he has travelled." ^ 

Baretti has particularly in mind the " Letters from Italy " 
of Dr. Sharp, who, as he declares, "was ignorant of the 
Italian language; was of no high rank; and was afflicted 
with bodily disorders." ^ "Sharp," says Baretti, "saw 
little, inquired less, and reflected not at all; blindly fol- 
lowing his travelling predecessors in their invectives 
against the pope's government." * As a whole, he charac- 
terizes Sharp's book as "the production of a mind unjustly 
exasperated against a people, whose individuals either 
knew him not, or, if they knew him, treated him with be- 
nevolence and civility, as they do all the English, and all 
other strangers who visit their country." ^ 

The uncompromising attitude of Sharp and of many other 
English tourists toward Italy was doubtless in part due to 
their Protestantism. Not that the ordinary traveling Eng- 
lishman in the eighteenth century was enthusiastic over 
his religion; but he had an instinctive dislike of popery, 
and more than a little contempt for the usages of the Roman 
Church. To some extent his feeling was shared by many 
intelligent Frenchmen and Italians, who gave only a nomi- 
nal allegiance to the traditional beliefs, and often not even 

III 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

that. On the Continent the fires of the Reformation and 
of the counter-Refonnation had well-niij;h burned out, so 
that the average Protestant might go where he pleased and 
do about as he pleased. But English Catholics were rare 
in the eighteenth century, and English travelers in France 
and Italy not unnaturally viewed with ill-concealed disdain 
the ceremonies and pictures and images and relics that 
they regarded as childish or heathenish. One traveler re- 
marks on the old masters that "almost all their paintings 
are of the same strain, to promote idolatry and superstition 
of some kind or other." ' And a few pages later he says: 
"Sometimes a priest or friar of their society gives them a 
detail of nonsense in praise of that saint, and of the piety of 
their institution, and such like, which they call a scnnon. 
We have heard some of these fulsome discourses, and have 
been much surprised at the feigned raptures of the preacher, 
and the amazing ignorance and simplicity of the hearers." ^ 
Like Sharp, the novelist Smollett embodied his experi- 
ences on the Continent in a well-known work. Smollett 
has the querulous and petulant tone of a nervous invalid, 
who sees everything through jaundiced eyes and makes 
sweeping assertions based upon an occasional unpleasant 
experience. In no case is it safe to allow him the final word 
in judging any part of the Continent, though his keen eye 
and marvelous descriptive faculty enable him to picture 
indi\'idual facts and scenes with great accuracy. One might 
easily gather from his pages a choice collection of vitu- 
perative adjectives, usually in the superlative degree, for 
he taxes the resources of the language to express his dis- 
gust at the treatment he received from scoundrels of every 
sort. Smollett had, indeed, one long series of quarrels with 
carriage drivers, innkeepers, and servants in his journey 
through France and Italy. Some of these squabbles were 
unquestionably due to annojdng exactions and petty knav- 
ery, but. as he confesses himself, a small additional outlay 
would have enabled him to avoid most of them.' 



112 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 



II 



Absurd as were some of the English estimates of men and 
thmgs on the Continent, they were due not wholly to per- 
sonal, temperamental prejudice, but in part to the alto- 
gether inadequate preparation for travel that many tourists 
had. If one may trust Gibbon, eighteenth-century students 
were only too likely to emerge from an English university 
almost as ignorant as when they entered. In any case their 
range of information was singularly narrow. Says a very 
competent observer: "It is easy to perceive that the Eng- 
hsh universities are in less repute than they were formerly. 
The rich and great, who, at one time, would on no account 
have omitted to send their sons thither, now frequently 
place them under some private tutor to finish them, as it is 
called, and then immediately send them on their travels. "^ 
We must admit that exceptional men like Warburton and 
Blackstone and Mansfield and Wesley and Chesterfield 
and Johnson and Gibbon, and many others who attended 
the universities, did, sooner or later, in spite of great laxity 
in the curriculum and the discipline, attain high scholar- 
ship. But in general standards were low. In any case, 
from a young man in society no great learning was expected' 
If he had gone through Oxford or Cambridge, he could not 
avoid picking up the rudiments of Latin and Greek and 
some bits of information about ancient Rome and a few 
other cities, but of the topography, the history, the govern- 
ment, the art, the architecture, the social conditions of the 
countries he intended to visit, he was strangely, and, to our 
thinking, often disgracefully, ignorant. The lack of ade- 
quate preparation for appreciating the sights of the Conti- 
nent left the ordinary young tourist helpless in the attempt 
to get more than a casual and unsystematic addition to his 
stock of knowledge. To one who knew nothing of history 
or architecture the remains of antiquity meant little: 
the Forum was a cow pasture, the Circus Maximus a brick 
heap, the Catacombs ill-smelling holes. 

"3 



\ 



TMK Tcn^KlSr AND THK iriXMl 

Yet. although fow know atiythiiij; thorouj^hly, every 
one in soeiety was expeeted to have at least a superfieial 
acquaintance \\'ith a multitude of thinv^s. Hasty and inat- 
tentive tourists wen.^ doubtless far too eomnion. but besides 
the mob of dissipated yoiui^: spendthrifts who tloeked to 
the fasliionable centers for mere diversion tluMv wore a 
i^ood mimber of En,i;lishmen who tVi^arded the Cotitiuental 
tour as a valuable means of culture at\d protited by it as 
they best could. They mapped out an atnbitious*pro- 
i^rannne and were kcvt^ly curioxis about every thii\,v;. There 
were tourist manuals that prescribed an astonishing; ranj;e of 
topics on which the traveler was supposed to infonii himself 
iti advaiKV and to accmnulate infonuation as he journeyed. 
But hervnn lay the danj^er that the relative value of facts 
would be hardly considered. "It is indispensably neces- 
sary." says Rerchtold, "for a youni; getuleman who desires 
to travel, either for his own in^provement. the welfare of 
mankind in goner.vl. or for the happiness of his country in 
particular, to lay in a cvTtain stock of fimdamental knowl- 
edge, befon^ he undertakes the ditVicult task of travelling 
to real advantage." ' 

"A mere connoisseur and \nrtuoso." says Andrews, "is 
a character by no means to be coveted by a gentleman. 
They who aim at no more misimderstand the only justifi- 
able purpose for which men of rank, education, and fortune 
ought to travel; which is to adorn their niinds with proper 
ideas, of men and things, and not to leani the trade of a 
collector of curiosities." * 

Intending travelers were ad\'ised to read the best histo- 
ries and accounts of each country, and to get the best maps 
and have them "properly fitted up on linen, in order to 
render them convenient for the pocket." * There is. indeed, 
no end to the well-meant adNnce tendered the tourist. 

Had the plan of such books been actually followed to the 
letter, the tourist would unquestionably have learned some- 
thing. But more than one conscientious young fellow gath- 
ered unrelated facts which were of no special importance 
to him, but which he industriously assembled because he 

114 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

was making a ^rand tour accorrling to rule and thus con- 
forming in one more partioilar to well-ordered conventions.^ 

In any case, it was of prime importance that, unless the 
tourist was to associate wholly with his fellow countrymen, 
he should pick up some acquaintance with the languages of 
the Continent. In fact, one main reason for making the 
long tour was that he might get at least a smattering of one 
or two of them. The two most in favor were French and 
Italian. French, in particular, was an essential part of the 
preparation of any young man of the upper classes for a 
social career or for public life. With French the tourist 
could go through France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Russia, 
Sweden, and be at home in all c-ultured society .^ But the 
stolid Englishman often hesitated to use his French or 
Italian for fear of committing some blunder in accent or 
grammar. Not too communicative in his own tongue, he 
might well ask himself why ho should go out of his way 
to exchange commonplaces in bad French or Italian with 
people he had never seen before and was unlikely ever to 
meet again. Instinctively, therefore, he sought out his 
countrymen in preference to the natives of the country he 
visited. 

How serious a hindrance the imperfect mastery of for- 
eign tongues was to anything beyond a merely superficial 
social intercourse, and how greatly it contributed to mutual 
misunderstandings, we need hardly remark. The poet 
Gray's experience at Paris was typical of any place on the 
Continent where there were many English. "We had," 
writes he,^ "at first arrival an inundation of visits pouring 
in upon us, for all the English are acquainted and herd 
much together, and it is no easy matter to disengage one- 
self from them, so that one sees but little of the French 
themselves. To be introduced to the People of high qual- 
ity, it is absolutely necessary to be Master of the Language, 
for it is not to be imagined that they will take pains to 
understand anybody, or to correct a stranger's blunders. 
Another thing is, there is not a House where they don't 
play, nor is any one at all acceptable, unless they do so too, 

"5 



THK TCH'UlSr AND IHK ir rOK 

a pn.'ifossod Gamostor Ivitv^ tho most ;ulvat\tai;oous char- 
ftctor a Man can have at Taris. The Abbes indeed and 
twen ot leartut\i: ate a IVople of easy access enough, but 
few l'!i\i;Ush that travel liave kt\o\Yled,i;e ei\ous;li to take 
any great pleasuiv in this Company, at least our present 
lot of travellei-s have not." * 

In our day many English travelers speak Freneli and 
Gonnan. and sometimes Italian and Si\itush. with tlueney 
and tolerable accuracy, but even yet the axerage Hngiish- 
man's lack of facility in ai\y foivign tongue is proverbial. 
He c:ui with ditVieulty forget himself, and he unwillingly 
submits to the humiliation attendant upon learning .i new 
langnage. In the eighteenth ceiUury n\any young ICnglish 
tourists intei\ded to learn no language but their own — aiui 
they succeeded admirably. Prvnid-spirited and unwilling 
to put themselves at a disadvantage before strangers, they 
ignoivd as far as they could the fact that tliey were living 
amidst the users of a lat\guage not their own. On the 
other hand, well-edncaled tourists commoiily spoke a tol- 
erable imitation of Fivnch. and a polished man of .society 
like George Selwyn was as nuich at home in l-'rcuch as in 
English. "Voltain.^ declares." says Leslie Stephen, "that 
Bolingbroke — one of whose e;irly essays was published in 
French — spoke l-^vnch with unsur|">assed energy and pre- 
cision. The young iioblctuan on his grand tour was easily 
admitted with his tutor to Frctich society, and it is enough 
to mention the names of llor.ice Walpole. Hume, and 
Adam Smith, to suggest the importance of the rel.it ions 
whicli sometimes sprang up." * 

The popularity of the Italian tour induced many Eng- 
lishmen to pick up some knowledge of the Italian langriiage 
and literature. The young Earl of Carlisle, writing to 
Selw>Ti from Turin in 1765, says: ' *'I am learning Spanish 
and Itiilian. and read a i:rreat deal." * And three years 
later, writing from Rome, he says; "I read Italian pretty 
well: speaking I have little occasion for. I think I am a 
good deal improved in my French." * 

Of Cluirles James Fox \ve an^ told: He "was an excellent 

iio 



THE 70(JHIS'J AND TllK JC/JOK 

Italian fx;holar, an^l v/roUt and r/,rr/':r:(:'] in i.h'; Ffrnch 
hiriyun'/f: fxlrnf/'X wilh a'; mij'';h ' ' vrof/; and c/n- 

Vf;rv,f1 in hh own." ' Hero an'] -iyVrhru'ir], Ijko 

Chute, who Bfxmt Bcvcn years in Italy, mastered tho lan- 
j?uaj;je,* But few had eithoT the time or the indination t.o 
do «o much. Ih/nu^t Wali>oIe ha^l a 1/Jerable {urnUvxrhy 
v/if,}i Italian, and a quaHxT of a century after his Italian 
trij; he c/)T)yraiu]rxU:v. him?x;lf in a letU.-r t^j Mann: "I wa:: 
pleased the other nij^ht at the llnhart e^/medy V; find I had 
lost so little of my Italian ar; t/> undoTntand it better than 
the French scenes." " JJut he ha/1 no jTcat rna';f/.'ry of it. 
He tried in /750 to writ^^ a letfx-r f/.» Dr. O^cchi, ?j/;knov/If;dj;- 
in^^ the joft of his BathK of Pisa, but finally j^ave up the 
attempt and asked Mann t/; (txjrrfsHfi thankr; for him.^ 
Limited ak/; was Walpole's mafit<'.Ty of Fre-rjch/' alth'^/uj^h 
he had anouyh for all prar;tical jmrpf/A-/^. 

All things considered, the a^yjuaintancf; of the rno^^t in- 
tclhy/^ni ILnyVvih tourists with French and Italian v/ar; very 
rcr'-jjectable. But with the rarest cxcajAvm':, one of v/hom 
was CarU;ret, who had traveled widely in Gc-rrnany, Enj^- 
lishmen in the ei;^hteenth cf;ntury were e-ntirely hywivixrii 
of German. MnyVv.h UmrhUi r/^](]<jm knev/ m'^^re than a 
phrar/i or tv/o of the lanynayc. Even a rtwlmy^ knowled^^e 
of German was a very rare acc.rmplirvhment nmr/ny Eny- 
Hshmen. Trained r;cholar:; like Hume, (ji}Ajf/n, Kobert:-xjn, 
and Parr v/ere unable t^; u.% Gcrrrrau books. H^/race Wal- 
pole's acquaintance with German enabled him as late as 
1788 to say no more than " I am t^Jd it i;; a fine lanjMjaj^e." " 
"But evcm in German courts," says I>eslie SV;phen, "the 
travellers knew no German, and the home-;-:tayinj^ British 
author rem.ained in absolute and content/;d ryriorancj-." "> 
We have, then, the surprisin^^ fact that, 'ahhfAiyh En^dand 
durin;^ the yrcsiUsr part of the ei^^htr^enth ce-ntury v;as ruled 
by the Hour^i of Hanove-r and thu:; hrouyhi mUj the clorx;st 
political relations with Germany, En^dishmen were ii\m<j'rX 
unt/juchcd by German culture until after the French Rev- 
olution. Indeed, lon;^ after German had v;on a fixed place 
in English education it pre:;ented peculiar difficulties to 

117 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

the ordinary Enj::lish intclHj^cncc. Evcmi Lord Houj^hton, 
whoso advantav;os were excoptional. \\Totc ns late as 1S71 
to his sou: "It is as well that you should boi^n that crack- 
jaw Gonuan at school, as I suspect the dithculty I have had 
in mastorin;^ it (though I went to the University of Bonn 
after leaviui; Canibriih^e) conies from my never havinj:: 
boon well p-ounded in its detestable j^rammar and absurd 
eoust ructions." * And Lord Hou,i::hton's experience was 
typical. Maldns: the larj^est allowance we can for indiviTlual 
mastery of foreij^i tonj^n^ies by eighteenth-century Eiii^lish- 
men. we may suspect that, as is yet the case, multitudes 
returned home froin their travels xN-ith hardly cnouj^h of 
any lanj::uai::e besides their own to enable them to order a 
dinner or to pay for it without being Ileeced. 

Ill 

As already observed, the ostensible purpose of much of 
the travel on the Continent was educational. And this 
purpose played so large a part in shaping most of the tours 
that we nnist consider in some detail the favorite eighteenth- 
century plan of sending out a young man to travel for a 
few years with a tutor from whom he was supposed to re- 
ceive instniction. This practice was not new, nor was it 
peculiar to England, but had long been in vogue among 
wealthy families on the Continent. A description of the 
system as it should be at its best appears in Francesco 
Soave's moral tale, " II contc d'Orengc." In this the author 
recounts how a nobleman's son, who had been reared in an 
exemplary way. set out on his travels at the age of twenty, 
under the direction of a \nse governor. He was proN-ided 
with all the recommendations that were necessary, and 
his tour included Italy and the then chief countries of 
Europe. Accompanied by his instructor he jounieyed from 
one point to another, became familiar \%'ith various places, 
with their position and appearance, with the natural prod- 
ucts of each country, with the most precious works of art, 
with the most reuo^^^led men of letters and artists of every 

iiS 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

country, and with the constitutions, the laws, the usa^^cs, 
and the morals of the various nations. In this improvinj^ 
fashion he spent two years. 

The youn;^ Enj^lishmcn who made the ;:^rand tour doubt- 
less occasionally measured up to this hi^h ideal, thou^^h in 
general the net result was not so much a thorough training 
in any one thing as a smattering of many, and a merely 
superficial polish. But in any case, this system of training 
was well established.^ 

In wealthy English families of the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries the education of young men was largely in 
the hands of private tutors. A few great public schools, 
like Eton and Winchester and Westminster, were famous, 
but for a variety of reasons many parents preferred to keep 
their sons under their own eyes and engaged private teachers 
for home training. And even after a youth had gone 
through a public school and the university, the tutor was 
felt to be the most suitable companion for the Continental 
tour, the importance of which was taken for granted. But, 
evidently, much would depend upon the character of the 
tutor. A high-minded, well-balanced scholar might be of 
inestimable service to a youth eager to improve his oppor- 
tunities. But the number of well-equipped tutors must have 
been relatively small. The low e?jb to which education had 
sunk at Cambridge and Oxford had brought it about that 
only an occasional scholar was even moderately competent 
to direct the w^rk of his pupil, to say nothing of serving as 
a guide on the Continent. "Intelligent foreigners are not 
a little surprised, when they behold our young gentlemen 
sent abroad in the company of persons doubtless of good 
character, hnt not unfrequcntly as new to the scenes they 
experience as the very pupils entrusted to their care. I will 
make no comment upon such a text." ^ But the tutor was 
expected to be, not merely a preceptor, but a guide, coun- 
selor, and friend. "He should be," says Vicesimus Knox, 
"a grave, respectable man of a mature age. A very young 
man, or a man of levity, however great his merit, learning, 
or ingenuity, will not be proper, because he will not have 

119 



riiK Touiusr AND riiE Til roil 

thnt natural niilhonty nnd that pori^onnl cUcfnity. whtch 
coiiittvuul nttontioti ntui obodiomv. A i^r.ivo ami i;;ixh1 
nvAu will watch ovov ihc nxovaU and the reHi;ion of his pupil; 
both which, ncconlinv; [o the pi\\^ct\t niodcv^ of conductinvi 
travel, arc cointuiMily shakct\ from the basis, aiul levelled 
with tlie dust, before the etui of the percv^rination. In 
their place sticcccd tniivcrsal vS«.vpticistn ami unboutidcil 
Hbcrtinistn." ' Now at\d then, in view of the steady de- 
mand for tutors of hiy^h character and ability, the i*ical 
was reali::cd. Some men i">f tval ctniiuMicc and many o\' 
respectable attaitiments were secuu\l avS traveling; tutors. 
Scholars of this sort wore far from bein>i the shallow dolts 
often satirised by critics of the v^ratid tour. No less a man 
thaii John Locke spent a year in Paris with an Kns^lish 
pupil, and evet\ set out wltli him for Rome, thouj^h the 
prudctit philosopher did not \enture to cross the Alps in 
the late autumi\. C^nly a few years earlier the eminent 
naturalist Jolu\ Ray had "declit\ed. owinj; to poor health, 
an otTcr to travel abroad with tluw youuj; noblemen."' 
The wcll-ktunvt^ Frat\cis Misson. whose i;uide-book served 
two get\crations of travelers it\ Italy, jovirneycd in i(iS; and 
T088 acnxss Kun'»pc to Italy with the j^randson of the tirst 
Duke of Ormonde. Johi\ Ihvval. who had more than one 
tilt with Pope and was not altoi;ether above criticism, trav- 
eled on the ContituMU with Georiic. Lord Viscount Malpas. 
Whatever may be said of ^^reva.l on other j^rounds, he was 
a thoroui^hly competent traveling tutor. More famous is 
Home Tooke. who made two educational tom's on the Con- 
tiT\ent. each tiu\e u\ chari^e of a pupil. He represented a 
type of it\structor not seldon\ to be met at Paris atid other 
ST^at centers, and in his gay suits of blue and silver and 
scariet and silver, to say nothing of other colors, he was as 
ut\clerical in appearance as clothing amid make him. 

The average tutor was. indeed, a dull-witted, mediocre 
scholar, with little itiiluence over his pupil. He was com- 
mv^t^ly not over-ambitious, or if he was. he did not con- 
tinue as tutor. Wretchedly paid, as was too often the case, 
and hourly humiliated by tiie insubordination of the young 

1 JO 



TIIK 'ITMnUST AM) 'UIK 'ir;']r)}>» 

cijb in hi:; char;y;, ho founfl hi:* lot Iho rcvor-/; of cnviahk;, 
and ho rardy harl tho ability Uj riiic above it. Naturally 
onmjj'h, the livarayG iuU)r, like the avcra;?c tourist, has 
vanished v/ithoiit leavinj^ a traa;, even in that ^^rcat necrol- 
ogy, the "Die-tionary oi National Bio^^raphy," 

In mr/^-t ai'M-M the tuUjrn of J^ln^dinh birth v/ere of rer,peet- 
able fanriilies, thr^J^^h rarely, if ever, of the !yx;ia] i-aandinj^ 
of theHr \)rot6y&.i. A:; already jjointcd out, the touri:;t:! of 
the fin^t half of the century belon^^erl mainly to the ranks 
of the y(:r]iry or the nobility. A;; the cymtury pro{^re<;?-/;d 
there wan an increaiiin^^ fjrr^portion of '.■/ju:: of v/ealthy 
trader;mcTi who made the j^rand tour, cuy/.r]-/ copyinj^ the 
fr>llie:-; and the vic<';;j of younj^ noblemen and ::tnvinj^ by 
their in;-xjlent oritcntation of riehen to par/-; for ycuUcmen 
to the manner born. Youn^^ masters of this type, uneasily 
adju';tinj^ them';elveM to their !;odal po';ition, v/ere the least 
tractable of pupil;:. With no family traditions of culture, 
they commonly trcatcfl with ajntcmpt the well-meant 
efforts of the tutor to jje-rforrn the < MWy-.tXioxi'; of hi;; contract. 
If he wa;; a man of rf:rinemo'nt and of a^nr-icientiou;-; char- 
arjter, he wa;> placed in a po;;ition of peculiar c-mbarrass- 
ment. If, on the other hand, he v/a;; not too scTUpukjus, 
and connived at the foliie:; of hi;: pupil, or even abettxjd 
them, the youn^ fellow wa;; ofU^n in a wor:-;c state than if 
he had ventured abroad alr^ne. Theoretically, nothing 
could be better than to put the entire time of a compeU^nt 
teacher at the service of a pupil. Men like Ix-ibnitz, L/Jcke, 
and Rou;-:;:eau recommended education under a private 
instructor rather than that obtained in the r/;hool:i. If all 
tutors had measured up to the standard;: ;;et by thc^xj ;(rcat 
thinker;;, therr: could have been little room for critici;:m. 
But nf;t neldom the En;di;:h tutor was selected bccau;x; of 
his familiarity, real or f:uj;po;x;d, with the languaj.^es of the 
Continent, thouj'h of the;:c he had perhaps only the super- 
fjc-ial knowledge posfX;;;::ed by a modern hotel waiU;r — a 
few phrases, and nothing more. If he was a Frenchman or 
a Sv/iss, he was too often unacquainted with Enpdi;>h char- 
acter and social usages, and entirely unable to control the 

121 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

active young animal of whom he had rashly assimied the 
charge. We rarely hear complaints that a tutor deliber- 
ately led his pupil astray, but he commonly drove with a 
very loose rein. Horace Walpole had no high opinion of 
tutors as a class, nor, for that matter, of the troops of trav- 
eling boj's who invaded the galleries of Florence and flung 
their money about the streets of Rome. Writing to Horace 
Mann he says: "The absurdities which English travelling 
boys are capable of, and likely to act or conceive, always 
gave me apprehension of your meeting \nth. disagreeable 
scenes — and then there is another animal still more absurd 
than Florentine men or English boys, and that is, travelling 
governors, who are mischievous into the bargain, and whose 
pride is always hurt because they are sure of its never 
being indulged. They will not leave the world, because 
they are sent to teach it. and as they come far the more 
ignorant of it than their pupils, take care to return with 
more prejudices, and as much care to instill all theirs into 
their pupils." ^ Similar flings abound in his later letters. 
In 1754 he writes to Mann: "I am glad 3'ou have got my 
Lord of Cork. He is, I know, a very worthy man, and 
though not a bright man, nor a man of the world, much 
less a good author, yet it must be comfortable to you now 
and then to see something besides travelling children, 
booby governors, and abandoned women of quality." ^ 
Before going to Paris, in 1765, he wrote to George Montagu: 
"Though they (the Richmonds) are in a manner my chil- 
dren, I do not intend to adopt the rest of my countrymen ; 
nor, when I quit the best company here, to live in the worst 
there; such are young travelling boys, and. what is still 
worse, old travelling boys, governors." ' And again in 
176S he remarks in a letter to Mann: "We expect our 
cousin and brother of Denmark next week ; — since he ^^411 
travel, I hope he ^\411 improve: I doubt there is room for 
it. He is much, I believe, of the stamp of many youths 
we have sent you; but with so much a better chance, that 
he has not a travelling tutor to make him more absurd 
than he would be of himself." * 

122 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

Nominally, the tutor was responsible for regular hours of 
teaching, when his pupils were making a stay of any length 
in a place, but how difficult or impossible instruction other 
than mere passing comment must have been while on the 
road the modern traveler can appreciate. At best, the re- 
straints of parental discipline were lacking. 

Among the swarms of English tourists in France and 
Italy, young men of character and ability were not lacking, 
but far too many of those who passed three years on the 
Continent returned little wiser than when they first crossed 
the Channel. With a pupil of the latter type, inclined to 
be headstrong and wayward, a conscientious tutor of some 
parts must at times have found his position the reverse of 
agreeable.^ He was bound to participate to some extent 
in the amusements of his charge or see the young fellow 
pass out of his control. But if the pupil's interests were 
mainly centered in drinking and gaming and association 
with loose women, the situation was difficult indeed. A 
more attractive position was that held by the witty Dr. 
John Moore, who for six years went up and down the Con- 
tinent as medical attendant and companion to the wealthy 
young Duke of Hamilton. But such opportunities were 
necessarily exceptional. 

Gentlemen who could afford the expense seldom venttired 
abroad without a carefully selected traveling servant, who 
stood, of course, lower in the social scale than the tutor. 
Such a servant was nevertheless expected to be tolerably 
educated and to make himself useful in all possible ways. 
Berchtold's enumeration of the accomplishments that he 
should possess and his suggestion of a suitable reward for 
faithful service throw some light on the conditions of eight- 
eenth-century travel: "A servant selected to accompany a 
gentleman on his travels should be conversant with the 
French language; ' write a legible and quick hand, in order 
to be able to copy whatever is laid before him : know a little 
of surgery, and to bleed well in case his master should meet 
with an accident where no chirurgical assistance is to be 
expected. Gentlemen should endeavour to attach such 

123 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

useful servants to their persons, by showing; the same care 
as a father has for a child, aj\d promise him a settlement 
for life on their return." * 

IV 

Generalization on national characteristics is tcmptins:, 
but ce>mmonly somewhat hairardous. Vet perhaps without 
irreat risk of error we may put together a few features Miat 
mark most of the Eni^lish travelers of the eii^hteenth cen- 
tury in their attitude toward the Continent. Beyond all 
question the averag:e English tourist was in ever)' sense in- 
competent to pass judi^ment upon the people of the Con- 
tinent. He seldom knew them well enough to be entitled 
to an independent opinion, and he was compelled to piece 
out his scanty experience by hearsay and by reading. 
Too commonly he made the mistake of grouping the people 
of an entire country under one sweeping category. And 
rarely did he realize the significance of the things that he 
saw. The sturdy belief of the average low-class Englishman 
tliat any foreigner was immeasurably his inferior was 
widespread throughout the eighteenth century. English 
laboa"'rs often took delight in hooting and stoning a for- 
eigner, merely because he was foreign.^ The upper classes 
were, at least in the greater centers of population, to some 
extent free from tliis prejudice and brutahty. Yet dislike 
of foreigners and contempt for their ways were tirmly 
rooted in the minds of most English tradesmen and of 
ordinary country squires. Some t>'pes of English travelers, 
indeed, were in the habit of admiring everything foreign 
above anything Englisli. But, all in all, perhaps the most 
striking characteristic of the ordinary nm of English trav- 
elers was their insularity and their unreadiness to admit 
the excellence of anything that was unfamiliar.^ Even in 
our time the discriminating Walter Bagehot has observed 
tliat there is nothing that the average Englishman dreads 
so mucli as the pain of a new idea. This trait was far more 
marked a centiu-y and a half ago and appeared at every 

124 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

turn. The En^^Hsh carried their nationality everywhere 
with them; and their habits and standards were in sharp 
contrast with those of the Continent. The En^dishman 
could not be induced to forj^o the pleasure of his tour, 
which would give him opportunity to see famous buildings 
and statues and pictures, but he was forever vaunting the 
superiority of his native land and di:;playing his contempt 
for the people who had the mifiortune to be born else- 
where. 

What Englishmen commonly thought of themselves and 
what foreigners thought of them were two very different 
things, though nothing is more surprising than the popu- 
larity on the Continent of almost everything English in 
the last third of the century, 'i'he self-satisfaction of the 
English is admirably illustrated in the reflections of the 
genial Earl of Cork and Orrery, which might add to an 
Englishman's peace of mind but would hardly be equally 
pleasing to strangers: "The English are a happy fjeople, if 
they were truly conscious, or could in any degree convince 
themselves, of their own felicity. They are the Jortunati 
nimium. Let them travel abroad, not to see fashions, but 
states, not to taste different wines, but different govern- 
ments; not to compare laces and velvets, but laws and 
politics. They will then return home perfectly convinced 
that England is possessed of more freedom, justice, and 
happiness, than any other nation under heaven." * 

In the same vein Eustace remarks a generation later: 
"The English nation, much to its credit, differs in this re- 
spect (i. e., in vilifying human nature] as indeed in many 
others, very widely from its rival neighbors, and is united 
with the wise, the good, the great of all ages and countries 
in a glorious confederacy to support the dignity and the 
grandeur of our common nature." ^ 

The Englishman's attitude toward the Continent was 
often strangely contradictory. "There arc instances," 
says Dr. Moore, "of Englishmen, who, while on their trav- 
els, shock foreigners by an ostentatious preference of 
England to all the rest of the world, and ridicule the man- 

125 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

ncrs, ctisloms, and opinions of every other nation; yet on 
their return to their own country, imnieiliately assume for- 
eii::n manners, and continue during the remainder of their 
Hves to express the hij^hest contem]")t for everythinj:; that 
is Enghsh." ' Nor was this result altogether surj-irising. 
Trained from his earliest youth to regard everything English 
as best, the untraveled Englishman on going abroad found 
to his surprise people who countetl their own ways as good 
as his, who ate palatable food unlike his own, and in dscss, 
manners, customs, and ideals were of a different type. And 
in the end he was converted in spite of himself. 

Fortunately, an occasional Englishman was sufficiently 
open-minded to confess that his countrjnnen were not 
entirely above criticism.- "English are generally the most 
extraordinary persons that we meet with, even out of Eng- 
land," writes Horace Walpole to Conway.' And years 
later, in a letter to Mann, he remarks, "What must Europe 
think of us from our travellers, and from our own accounts 
of ourselves?"* Lady Mary MontagTi had lived enough 
abroad to judge her countr>nnen from the Continental 
point of vnew, and she regarded a good proportion of the 
English tourists as no great credit to their native land. 
Writing from Venice to Lady Pomfret,^ she says that she 
is impatient to hear good sense pronounced in her native 
tongue; "ha\ang only heard my language out of the 
mouths of boys and governors for these five months. Here 
are inundations of them broke in upon us this carnival, and 
my apartment must be their refuge; the greater part of 
them ha\4ng kept an in\4olable fidelity to the languages 
their nurses taught them. Their whole business abroad 
(as far as I can perceive) being to buy new cloaths, in which 
they shine in some obscure coffee-house, where they are 
sure of meeting only one another; and after the important 
conquest of some waiting gentlewoman of an opera Queen, 
who perhaps they remember as long as they live, return to 
England excellent judges of men and manners. I find tlie 
spirit of patriotism so strong in me every time I see them, 
that I look on them as the greatest blockheads in nature; 

126 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

and, to say truth, the compound of boo?jy and petit-mattre 
makes up a very odd sort of animal." ' 

Extraordinary as English tourists often appeared to their 
own countrymen, they seemed still more so to foreigners, 
to whom they were a perpetual puzzle. England was no- 
table all over Europe for producing odd types of travelers — 
men who were counted peculiar even at home, and whose 
strongly marked idiosyncrasies naturally made a lasting 
impression upon the Continent. The composite portrait 
often drawn as representing the typical Englishman is 
doubtless inaccurate as picturing any individual traveler, 
but it is, on the whole, more true than false, and would 
never have been suggested by the representatives of any 
other nation. 

As might have been expected, the Englishman was in 
general not an easy traveler. To difficulties that no one 
could escape he added others by his lack of adaptability to 
unfamiliar conditions. Notwithstanding the ostentatious 
profusion of most wealthy tourists, there were many tour- 
ists of the type of Dr. Smollett, exacting and yet penurious, 
who were in hot water from the day they landed on the Con- 
tinent until they were safely back in England. Such 
travelers, wherever they went, loudly voiced their dis- 
content with the country and the people, and commonly 
found no lack of material for criticism. The Englishman at 
home was so accustomed to speak plainly that he could not 
be expected to bridle his tongue while abroad. Fortu- 
nately for him, most of his criticism of governments and of 
restrictive regulations of various sorts was imparted to his 
fellow countrymen in their native tongue and was unin- 
telligible to any one besides them. "You EngHsh," re- 
marks Cogan, "are supposed to think, but you are univer- 
sally accused of keeping all your thoughts to yourselves! 
— A Frenchman will touch upon all the affairs of every 
court in Europe, and all the fashions in each court, before 
an Englishman can resolve to enquire what is the news of 
the day." ^ In general an English traveler presented his 
least attractive side to strangers. He felt it hardly worth 

127 



THE TOlIlllSr AND THE TUTOll 

whilo to oxort hitnsolf for pooplo ho niii;lit tiovor moot ;i.i;aln. 
and with whom l\o would not oonoorii himsoh' it' ho woro to 
meet thorn. It is nol surprising;, thoroforo, that t"oroi>;nors 
who saw^ only tho most unlovoly sidos o( luij^lish charaotor 
shoulil havo boon rathor ropollod than attraotod. But not 
infroquontly tho vory man who is chilly toward strani^ors is 
tho truost of frionds. llo profors a fow tnistod ovuitlilants 
to any mnnbor c^f casual acquaint anoos. Ho has no\-or 
admitted any one [o his inner oirolo without tho most ojiro- 
ful scrutiny, and for this ho lacks i^pportunity when ho 
casually moots a strani;cr. Gcttini; vmi easily with people 
that in\o chances to moot is an art that tho l-'rcnch havo 
carried to ]HM-t"ection. The Eni;lishman of the ei.i;hteentli 
century commonly lacked the tlcKibility and the solf-fi^r- 
gctfulness nooessary (ov sueh oasual intoroourse, partiou- 
larly if he had to use a lani;uav;o not his own and thus ran 
the risk of making himself ridieulous. In genora.l intoUi- 
i^otioo. or at least in hard conmion sense, and partieularly in 
self-possession, Eni;lishmen compared favorably with any 
travelers on tho Continent. lUit as a rule they could enter 
but siiperticially into the spirit of forcii^n life. 

Bearing:; all this in mind we may consider for a moment 
lilui^lishmcn's interest in society abroad and the extent to 
which they minj^led with it. We must remember that tho 
ordinary traveler was under a s;ood deal of disadvantage 
in attempting to make more than a passing acquaintance 
with the people of the Continent. Commonly remaining 
in one place for oi\ly a limited time, he coxild not easily 
escape the hurried feeling that most travelers have in a 
country full of interesting sights. In so far as he troubled 
himself NN-ith society he naturally consorted with the upper 
classes,' for whom weR"> reserved most of the pleasures that 
made life before the Revolution worth li\-ing. 

Polite society throughout Europe a century and a half 
ago was in a sense a great inteniational social club. Any 
one of recognized rank in one country had no dilhculty in 
being admitted to society in another. France set the 
standard of maimers for all Europe, and \'ersailles served 



THE TOIJHIS'I' AND THE iUTOR 

as a m(,<]d for scores of litUc German and Italian courts. 
To a crowrJcd French salon he could find entrance, alon^' 
with everybody else of unquestioned social standin^^. and 
also to a Roman conversazione.^ But at a time when rank 
counted for much in Europe, letters of introduction were 
almost a necessity for the traveler. Without such help he 
mi^^ht see the main si^^hts, and by the richness of his dress 
and his equipage he could be sure of deference in many 
quarters, but for admission to society he must have cre- 
dentials. Then all was easy. "A sin^de letter of intro- 
ductif.n," says Nugent, "is sufTicicnt to procure a person 
an agreeable reception among the Germans, which can 
hardly be said of the inhabitants of any other country. 
Their civility goes so far as to introduce a stranger directly 
into their societies or assemblies." « And as for Italy, Bar- 
etti advises the tourist: "On your reaching the first town in 
Italy, whether it be Turin, Genoa, or any other, endeavor to 
obtain as many letters of recommendation from the na- 
tives as you can, to take along with you as you advance 
further into the country. The nobility of every place, and, 
above all, the learned, will be pleased to give you such 
letters; and the people to whom you will be thus recom- 
mended, will still direct you to others. . . . [They may 
perhaps] procure you a good lodging where the inn is not 
to your liking, . . . tell you the true price of things that 
you may not be cheated," etc.^' 

Walpole repeatedly sends to Horace Mann the names of 
English tourists who expect to visit Florence, recommend- 
ing now "Mr. Hobart," who "proposes passing a little 
time at Florence, which I am sure you will endeavour to 
make as agreeable to him as pos.sible"; « now "Mr. vStan- 
ley, one of the Lords of the Admiralty"; « now "the 
Duke of Newcastle's eldest son, Lord Lincoln," who "is 
going to Rome";" now "a young painter who is going to 
study at Rome." ^ To these might be added numerous 
others. 8 Much of the time of an ambassador during the 
tourist season must have been consumed in attending to 
the interests of young men of rank who were traveling 

129 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

abroad and needed advice or entertainment or letters of 
introduction. 

But, however well introduced, Englishmen in Italy who 
really wished to know the Italian people were hampered by 
the conditions under which Italian society lived, and rarely 
saw Italian life from the Italian point of view. In some 
communities, notably Rome, the barriers that excluded 
strangers were not rigidly maintained, but even in favor- 
able cases the tourist was treated as a tourist and not as an 
Italian. Moreover, tourists who carried abroad a fixed 
prejudice against foreigners were unlikely to go out of their 
way to seek society or to welcome it when thrust upon 
them. Hence, the English tourist, as a rule, gave his main 
attention to the things he could see, and regarded the in- 
habitants as a negligible quantity. People he could see 
anywhere, even at home. In fact, an Englishman often 
hesitated to take notice of his own countrymen that he 
casually met abroad, either for fear of being embarrassed 
by their company later or merely because of constitutional 
indifference. Smollett cites two striking instances. An 
Englishman had hired a felucca and a servant to go from 
Antibes to Leghorn. "This evening [March 20, 1765] he 
came ashore to stretch his legs, and took a solitary walk on 
the beach, avoiding us with great care, although he knew 
we were English: his valet, who was abundantly commu- 
nicative, told my servant that in coming through France 
his master had travelled three days in company with two 
other English gentlemen, whom he met upon the road, and 
in all that time he never spoke a word to either: yet in 
other respects he was a good man, mild, charitable, and 
humane. This is a character truly British." ' In another 
case, "There was an English gentleman laid up at Auxerre 
with a broken arm, to whom I sent my compliments, with 
offers of service; but his servant told my man that he did 
not choose to see any company, and had no occasion for my 
service. This sort of reserve seems peculiar to the Eng- 
lish disposition. When two natives of any other country 
chance to meet abroad, they run into each other's arms 

130 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

and embrace like old friends, even though they have never 
heard of one another till that moment; whereas two Eng- 
lishmen in the same situation, maintain a mutual reserve 
and diffidence, and keep without the sphere of each other's 
attraction, like two bodies endowed with a repulsive 
power." ' 

Hazlitt remarks upon the icy reserve of an English gen- 
tleman with whom he traveled for a time in France, and 
adds: "I know few things more delightful than for two 
Englishmen to loll in a post-chaise in this manner, taking 
no notice of each other, preserving an obstinate silence, and 
determined to send their country to Coventry. We pre- 
tended not to recognise each other, and yet our saying 
nothing proved every instant that we were not French. 
At length, about half way, my companion opened his lips, 
and asked in thick, broken French, 'How far it was to 
Evreux?' I looked at him and said in English, 'I did not 
know.' Not another word passed." ^ Naturally, tourists 
of this type baffied even the most determined attempts of 
foreigners to make their acquaintance. 

In varying degrees this excessive reserve was the accepted 
national trait. Dr. Moore tells a very good story of Lord M. 
and a French marquis at Paris, who "was uncommonly 
lively." The genial Frenchman "addressed much of his 
conversation to his Lordship; tried him upon every sub- 
ject, wine, women, horses, politics, and religion. He then 
sung Chansons d boire, and endeavoured in vain to get my 
Lord to join in the chorus. Nothing would do. — He ad- 
mired his clothes, praised his dog, and said a thousand 
obliging things of the English nation. To no purpose; his 
Lordship kept up his silence and reserve to the last, and 
then drove away to the opera. ' Ma foi,' said the Marquis, 
as soon as he went out of the room, 'il a de grands talen(t)s 
pour le silence, ce Milord la.'" ^ 

The English attitude was, indeed, peciiliarly exasper- 
ating. Dr. Moore cites another instance: "Though B 

understands French, and speaks it better than most Eng- 
lishmen, he had no relish for the conversation, soon left 

131 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

the company, and has refused all invitations to dinner ever 
since. He generally finds some of our countrymen who 
dine and pass the evening with him at the Pare Royal." On 

one occasion Moore dined with his friend B "at the 

public ordinary of the Hdtel de Bourbon. . . . Our enter- 
tainment turned out different, however, from my expecta- 
tions and his wishes. A marked attention was paid us from 
the moment we entered; every body seemed inclined to 
accommodate us with the best places. They helped«us 
first, and all the company seemed ready to sacrifice every 
little conveniency and distinction to the strangers: For 
next to that of a lady, the most respected character at 
Paris is that of a stranger. All this, however, was thrown 

away on B . 'There was nothing real in all the fuss 

those people made about us,' says he. 'Curse their cour- 
tesies,' said he, — 'they are the greatest bore in nature. 
— I hate the French. — They are the enemies of England, 
and a false, deceitful, perfidious — ' 'But as we did not 
come over,' interrupted I, 'to fight them at present, we 
shall suspend hostilities till a more convenient season.'" * 

How absurd was this dislike of other nations many Eng- 
lishmen clearly perceived: "The English aversion to for- 
eigners is in opposition to reason, judgment, and politeness. 
Because we are islanders, the happiest circumstances in 
some respects belonging to us; are our manners more re- 
fined, or are our customs nearer perfection, than the cus- 
toms and manners of other people? I fear the contrary. 
Our separation from the Continent gives us peculiarities 
which other nations have not. It gives us that shyness, 
that obstinate, silent, rude reserve, which we practise 
towards ourselves and all the rest of the world. The sneer, 
that proud, vain, cowardly sneer, which supplies the want 
of wit, and discovers the abundance of ill-nature, is en- 
tirely and shamefully our own; so that, if we find faults in 
others, how many faults may others find in us?" ^ 

In the endeavor to remedy in some measure this state of 
things and to fit their countrymen for social life abroad, 
enhghtened Englishmen offered such advice as appears in 

132 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

Andrews's "Letters to a Young Gentleman": ^ "In order 
to render yourself acceptable to French companies, you 
must assume something of their manners and endeavor to 
put on some appearance of their vivacity. Their chief 
complaint respecting us is a defect of liveliness and a taci- 
turnity which they suspect sometimes of being rather 
affected. ... In the mean time, that you may fill your 
place with propriety in French companies, furnish your 
memory with as many anecdotes as you can procure con- 
cerning the people of high rank and fashion in England." 

In the thirty years just preceding the French Revolution, 
Englishmen of high birth or distinguished for achievement 
of some sort had as a rule only to decide which social invita- 
tions to refuse. In Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's day, 
however, — if we may trust her sweeping generalization, 
— the English had won no marked social recognition in 
Italy, though perhaps they had had as much as they cared 
for. She says: "To say truth, they (Mr. Mackenzie and 
Lord Bristol) are the only young men I have seen abroad, 
that have found the secret of introducing themselves into 
the best company. All the others now living here (how- 
ever dignified and distinguished) by herding together and 
throwing away their money on worthless objects, have only 
acquired the glorious title of Golden Asses; and since the 
birth of the Italian drama, Goldoni has adorned his 
scenes with gU Milordi Inglesi, in the same manner as 
Moliere represented his Parisian marquises." ^ 

Dr. Moore sums up the whole case in some very sensible 
remarks, which without much question contain a large 
amount of truth : — 

"Of all travellers, the young English nobility and gentry 
have the least right to find fault with their entertainment, 
while on their tours abroad; for such of them as show a 
desire of forming a connexion with the inhabitants, by 
even a moderate degree of attention, are received upon 
easier terms than the travellers from any other country. 
But a very considerable number of our countrymen have 
not the smallest desire of that nature: They seem rather 

133 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

to avoid their society, and accept w-ith reluctance every 
offer of hospitality. This happens partly from a prejudice 
against foreigners of every kind; partly from timidity or 
natural reserve; and in a great measure from indolence, 
and an absolute detestation of ceremony and restraint. 
Besides, they hate to be obliged to speak a language of 
which they seldom acquire a perfect command. 

"They frequently, therefore, form societies or clubs of 
their own, where all ceremony is dismissed, and the greatest 
ease and latitude allowed in behaviour, dress, and conver- 
sation. There they confimi each other in all their preju- 
dices, and with united voices condemn and ridicule the 
customs and manners of every country but their own. 

"By this conduct the true purpose of travelling is lost 
or perverted; and many English travellers remain four or 
five years abroad, and have seldom, during all this space, 
been in any company but that of their own countrymen. 

"To go to France and Italy, and there converse with 
none but English people, and merely that j'^ou may have 
it to say that you have been in those countries, is certainly 
absurd. Nothing can be more so, except to adopt with 
enthusiasm the fashions, fopperies, taste, and manners of 
those countries, and transplant them to England, where 
they never will thrive, and where they always appear 
awkward and unnatural. For after all his efforts of imita- 
tion, a travelled Englishman is as different from a French- 
man or an Italian as an English mastiff is from a monkey 
or a fox. And if ever that sedate and plain-meaning dog 
should pretend to the gay f riskiness of the one, or to the 
subtility of the other, we should certainly value him much 
less than we do, 

" But I do not imagine that this extreme is by any means 
so common as the former. It is much more natural to the 
English character to despise foreigners than to imitate them. 
A few tawdry examples to the contrary, who return every 
winter from the Continent, are hardly worth mentioning 
as exceptions." ^ 

With reference to the English habit of herding together, 

134 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

he observes also: "It would be arrogance in anybody to 
dispute the right which every free-born Englishman has 
to follow his own inclination in this particular: Yet when 
people wish to avoid the company of strangers, it strikes 
me that they might indulge their fancy as comi^letely at 
home as abroad ; and while they continue in that humour, 
I cannot help thinking that they might save themselves 
the inconveniency and expense of travelling." ' 

Defects of temperament and education, the Englishman 
undoubtedly had. He too readily assumed that what he 
had been taught to approve was the sole standard of truth. 
But foreigners of discernment were bound to recognize 
the sterling character of the better English travelers. Eng- 
lishmen as a class had a reputation for fair dealing, and for 
keeping their promises. Rightly enough, as Trevelyan 
says, was the British name venerated on the Continent.' 



We have still one important matter to consider, and that 
is the eighteenth-century tourist's estimate of medieval 
architecture. As every one knows, the eighteenth century 
passed through a revolution in taste as well as in systems 
of government. The man who had come to maturity be- 
fore 1760 continued in the main to apply the old standards, 
even in the last third of the century. And even the younger 
men began only here and there to see merit in buildings 
that had for generations been despised. 

Naturally enough, to us of the twentieth century the 
judgments of most eighteenth-century travelers in matters 
of art and architecture seem strangely narrow and con- 
ventional. They commonly admire uncritically, or if 
they find fault, they judge by standards that to our time 
appear absurdly false.' A multitude of things that the 
modern traveler counts of the highest value are to earlier 
tourists matters of supreme indifference. In place of 
an intelligent description of the buildings of a town, 
they often give a mere catalogue, betraying no personal 

135 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

knowledge and no critical judgment. The whole might 
have been taken from the guide-book, without the trouble 
of a visit. Note what Northall says of Vicenza, which 
boasts in its town hall the greatest achievement of Palla- 
dio. The entire account is as follows: "On the 3d of 
June (1752) we came to Vicenza; a small town, but very 
populous; the manufacture of silk being very considerable 
here. The townhouse was built by Palladio; and here 
is a beautiful piece of architecture by the same, a theatre 
built after the antique manner. Near this town is a 
famous country seat belonging to the Marquis of Capra, 
built by Palladio."^ 

Especially marked was the general failure to appre- 
ciate the works of the Middle Ages. To most tourists 
before the French Revolution the Middle Ages were 
a sealed book, and to the average man the great cathe- 
drals and castles, though surpassing almost anything of 
a later day, made slight appeal. Prepossessed with the 
notion that medieval art and architecture could be naught 
but barbarous, tourists in France and Italy bestowed 
only a passing glance upon delightful medieval cities 
and hastened on to Rome. Naturally, then, we must not 
expect to find many tourists visiting for mere sight-seeing 
old hill towns like Assisi or Perugia or Orvieto or Ur- 
bino or San Gimignano or Volterra. To many an Eng- 
lishman Italy was interesting chiefly as a vast museum 
of antiquity which enabled, him to vivify his recollec- 
tions of the classics. On a lower plane, but neverthe- 
less not to be despised, he placed the work of the Re- 
naissance, Raphael, Michael Angelo, Bramante, Guido 
Reni. The great ancient world and the great Renais- 
sance he could fairly well understand, for their life was 
expressed in terms with which he was familiar. But 
to the thousand years preceding the fifteenth century 
he gave little thought.^ For the buildings and pictures 
and mosaics of that age he sometimes had a word of 
condescending praise, but of insight into the medieval 
temper he had very little. The rhapsodies of Ruskin 

136 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

over Gothic art or things medieval would have seemed 
to him little better than raving. Up to the middle of 
the eighteenth century travelers seldom let slip an op- 
portunity to show contempt for Gothic architecture as 
unworthy the attention of a man of cultivated taste. ^ 
Already in the time of the Renaissance, Tasso, as Babeau 
points out, had found Gothic ^ architecture barbarous.' 
Montaigne "troubled himself in no way with Gothic 
buildings. For him the cathedral of Chalons seems not 
even to exist." ^ When later travelers approve a minor 
detail of a Gothic building, they usually qualify their 
commendation with an added slur. In Evelyn's opinion 
St. John Lateran is "for outward form, not comparable 
to St. Peter's, being of Gothic ordonnance." ^ Santa 
Croce of Jerusalem "without is Gothic, but very glorious 
within." ® Of Monreale, with its glorious array of an- 
cient mosaics and its unrivaled cloisters, which Spanish 
soldiers had enjoyed hacking and mutilating, one tour- 
ist can say only that "the cathedral exhibits a very dis- 
agreeable specimen of the Gothic taste," ^ and Breval 
observes that "The Isles are filled with historical Rep- 
resentations in a barbarous Mosaic, out of the old and new 
Testament."^ Northall (1752) patronizingly says of 
"the old churches of Florence" that they "are built 
in the Gothic taste, and fine in their way; but the more 
modem churches are built in a good taste." ^ Of Siena, 
he apologetically remarks, "There is nothing in this city 
so extraordinary as the cathedral, which a man may 
view with pleasure after he has seen St. Peter's; though 
it is quite of another make, and can only be looked upon 
as one of the masterpieces of Gothic architecture." '° 
De La Lande is full of the same prejudice. Of Colleoni's 
tomb at Bergamo, one of the most notable works of the 
early Renaissance, he says: "It is very bad. It is of a 
time that had not yet emerged from the Gothic." ^^ The 
author of an anonymous "Totu* through Germany" 
(1792) remarks of the exquisite cathedral of Regens- 
burg: "The cathedral is not admired for its beauty, or 

137 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

any other excellency; but the monastery of St. Emeran 
is well worth seeing." ^ 

It is not true that the eighteenth century was entirely 
indifferent to Gothic architecture, for an occasional word 
of praise for Gothic is already heard in the first half of 
the century, and after the middle of the century Gothic 
architecture has no lack of defenders. Even Misson 
admired the cathedral of Siena. " The cathedral is of 
a fine Gothic structure, and its beauty is so much the 
more remarkable, that the building is finished, which is 
scarcely to be seen in great churches." ^ Representative 
guide-books like Nugent's "Grand Tour" and De la 
Force's "Nouvelle Description de la France" devote 
considerable space to Gothic cathedrals. But there is 
in general no intelligent understanding of the principles 
of Gothic art, even among those who arc most interested. 
The comment on Gothic buildings is vague, and where 
it is specific, it often mingles impartially praise and blame, 
as in the following on the cathedral of Rheims: "The 
front of this stupendous church consists of a vast number 
of statues: Saints in miniature, placed in little niches, 
and in exact spaces; so that the eye is pleased and shocked 
at the same time. Magnificence is mixed with little- 
ness, grandeur with meanness, proportion with dispro- 
portion; consequently it creates in our thoughts an un- 
easy mixture of admiration and contempt. The painted 
windows are all perfect, and the sun has a glorious effect 
upon the variety of their colours." ' 

Nugent's "Grand Tour" admirably illustrates the 
growing admiration for Gothic, though he has hazy ideas 
of the development of medieval architecture. The ex- 
quisite Romanesque church of "S. Trophimus" at Aries 
he calls "a vast Gothic structure."^ "The cathedral" 
at Vienne, "dedicated to S. Maurice is a magnificent 
Gothic structure." ^ He has also a good word for the 
cathedrals of Strassburg, Orleans, and Chartres. It 
is notable that he says nothing of the exquisite stained glass 
at Chartres.^ Even more than Nugent, Dr. John Moore 

138 



THE TOURIST AND THE TUTOR 

is in hearty accord with the spirit of the Gothic builders. 
After praising the cathedral of Strassburg as "a very 
fine building," he goes on to say: "Our Gothic ances- 
tors, like the Greeks and Romans, built for posterity. 
Their ideas in architecture, though different from those 
of the Grecian artists, were vast, sublime, and generous, 
far superior to the selfish smugness of modern taste, which 
is generally confined to one or two generations; the plans 
of our ancestors with a more extensive benevolence em- 
brace distant ages."^ 

In 1787, St. John, in his "Letters from France," shows 
himself a passionate admirer of the Gothic. "Though 
there are," says he, "absurdities in the Gothic archi- 
tecture, yet I think the moderns are wrong totally to 
exclude it." ^ He dwells upon "the lofty majesty and 
beauty of the inside" of N6tre Dame' and declares: 
"I would rather spend my life even in an old Gothic 
castle in a romantic situation, with rocks and woods 
and cataracts around me, than in all the formal grand- 
eur and stupid regularity of Versailles." * Of Chantilly 
he says with enthusiasm: "The castle is a great pile of 
Gothic building, with huge round towers at the angles 
to serve as bastions. The venerable aspect of this groupe 
of Gothic castles, dark and solemn, in the middle of a 
fine sheet of water, impresses the beholder with awe 
and admiration. ... It appears antique, solemn and 
romantic; and the noblest piece of Corinthian archi- 
tecture does not appear so awful and majestic as the 
antique walls and ramparts of Chantilly." ^ 

But it is unnecessary to multiply examples. Hence- 
forth one needed not to apologize for admiring the most 
fascinating architecture in Europe, though two or three 
generations had yet to pass before one could judge Gothic 
buildings with thoroughly intelligent tmderstanding of 
their development. 



139 



CHAPTER VIII 

SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 



If this chapter were concerned vdth the touring of a 
century or two earlier, the main theme might well be the 
peril of travel. So distinctly was every sixteenth-century 
journey an achievement that the traveler not unpardon- 
ably regarded himself as in some sense an explorer and 
a hero. In the eighteenth century there was less of ac- 
tual danger. But travel in the eighteenth century was 
not an unalloyed pleasure, though the zeal and persis- 
tence with which Englishmen flocked to the Continent 
are sufhcient proof that they thought the pleasure ex- 
ceeded the pain. Incidentally, in some other chapters 
we have noted unpleasant features of travel that could 
not be escaped by any forethought. There still remain 
a large number of annoyances, or worse, — some of them 
petty enough in themselves, perhaps even laughable in 
the retrospect, — which materially affected the comfort 
and dulled the pleasure of the journey. 

Since almost every serious traveler thought it his duty 
to keep some sort of account of his journey, we have no 
lack of descriptions of the experiences that one ordinarily 
went through. From these relations we see that those 
who were bent on visiting Rome and Naples and Vienna 
had a long, hard pilgrimage before they reached the 
promised land. Moreover, from the chronicles of the 
minor hindrances and discomforts suffered even by wealthy 
travelers, we may infer what was to be expected by trav- 
elers of modest resources. Significant, at all events, is 
it that practically no one failed to record some well- 
grounded complaint. 

140 



SOMK DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

A j.^rcat number of the conveniences of travel that we 
now rely upon as a matter of course were lackinj^^ in the 
eighteenth century, and there were scores of obstacles 
now rarely encountered. Travelers of every sort com- 
plain of annoyinj.^ delay and expense owing to govern- 
ment regulations They meet discomfort and extortion 
on the road; the inns are dirty and ill-provided; the ser- 
vants are ill-traine^l; the food is uneatable; the beds are 
damp and filthy, and often alive with vermin. These 
and a multitude of other trials made the journey hard, 
and often tempted the traveler to wish that he had been 
content to remain at home. 

Sharp, writing from Naples, says: "Could an asth- 
matic man jump from London to the lodgings I have 
taken, though at any risk of his neck, he would do well 
to venture; but I cannot say it woiild ?je worth while 
to go and return as we do, through so much filth, and so 
many suflerings from bugs, lice, fleas, gnats, spiders," * 
etc. 

With the dawn of the eighteenth century not a few of 
the dangers and annoyances of an earlier day were les- 
sened or entirely removed, but outside the large towns, 
and particularly off the main lines of travel, conditions 
were often frightfully primitive. The toil of travel was 
painfully felt in the long, slow journeys that no one, 
whatever his wealth, could hope to escape. A young 
man flushed with health might enjoy the experience, but 
it was none the less severe. 

Writing to Selwyn, in 1768, the Earl of Carlisle says: 
"I was in bed but seven hours in going three hundred 
and forty miles, but as I could sleep five-and-forty miles 
without waking, I was very little tired, and, having two 
carriages, it was no great fatigue to the servants. I crossed 
the Danube over a bridge when the postilions would 
not suffer me to remain in the chaise. I must own I had 
some apprehensions for my clothes, as the bridge, being 
very old, and made of wood, even with my weight shook 
considerably, but no accident happened." ^ 

141 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

Fortunately, the mind of the average tourist was pre- 
pared to meet some discomfort, since, to a far greater 
degree than is now the case, he was everywhere com- 
pelled to come into personal contact vnth unpleasant 
things. Many of these things, where they still exist, are 
escaped by the traveler who has a modem guide-book 
which warns him what to avoid. There were guide- 
books, even in the eighteenth century and earlier, and 
some, like Misson's and Nugent's, had excellent feakires, 
but most guidebooks were defective in failing to provide 
maps of countries showing the best routes, plans of cities, 
and adequate information about the character and situa- 
tion of inns and about prices. Travel was for the rich, 
who were able to pay any price. To be too inquisitive 
about the cost of things was vulgar, and, besides, made 
unnecessary trouble for the compiler of the guide-book. 
But in many cases comfort could not be secured at any 
price. 

II 

We must never forget that, with all its delights, an 
eighteenth-century journey was a serious affair, and that 
prayers were commonly offered up in the churches for a 
pious traveler's safe return. Mindful of perils on sea and 
on land, Englishmen a century and a half ago prepared for 
a tour abroad almost as carefully as a soldier prepares for 
a campaign. And this was no mere excess of caution, for 
there was always a possibility that the traveler might not 
arrive unharmed at his destination. War was by no means 
continuous in the eighteenth century, but the interrup- 
tions to travel from this cause were not slight.' During the 
Seven Years* War, for example, tourist travel almost 
ceased. After the peace of 1763 it began again with re- 
newed activity. 

Perils of another sort beset the traveler by sea. Nearly 
every tourist to the Continent crossed at least the Channel 
or the North Sea, but comparatively few made the long 
voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar to Italy. And it 

142 



SOMK JMNGKHS AMJ ANNOYANCES 

was W':ll that i.hi-.y *]]'] not. Tho ship« wctc oommonJy 
•mall and 'iirty, thf; f'x^d Lai-j, thf; weathfrr ofV.-n row/h, :xn<], 
worst of all, there were lon^-fitandinjj trafHtion--: of capture 
and imprir/jnment by fXia-rovcrs. In the time of Chaucer 
there v/ar; danj^er from pirateii or privat/iers even in crosw- 
in^ the En^di;;h Channel. And this clanger r;till threats 
enwl travelerfi on mo;:t f-x;a'> in th^; firit half of th^: rxrv^-n- 
tcenth amtury.' 

In the dj^hUjenth century no touri;>t to the Continent 
had ;^reat rcaf^^n f'^/r apprehension f^ this score exc^ipt in 
the Mcdit^rrranean. Here on/i ran at least a chance of 
bdn^^ pounced upon by f/ne of the lurkinj^ piratical veiisels 
from liarbary. Note Bercht'-^ld's v/ord of cauti''/n: "It is 
a rnaXUtv of importance t^.» know wh/rther that flaj< which 
the vessel carries is rcsfKXi/i^l by the pyratical pov/ers of 
Bar?jary, or not, if tho c/urr/i of the vcfiJX;! sh'-Aild li'; n';ar 
to any such p<'/rts." * 

Jiy huj^jonj^ the shore the i/Airhi y/An'^ fn/m Mar/Hlles 
U'j Genoa or Le^^hom ran no very 'M:nrju:i risk of cndm'^ 
his days as a captive in Barbary.* But Nugent gives 
warning that in g'^nng fr'-/m Rf/mf: Uj Naple^i "there is 
danger of ?jeing taken by the a^sairs of Barbary who oftc-n- 
times hide themrx;lveii clof>e to the shore and surprise the 
feluccas. "< 

Strange as it may seem, the mo:.t pov/erful natiorj.s of 
Eurofx; in the eighteenth century regularly paid trilmUi 
Uj the Barbary p\r<x\j-j:, in order t/j insure the safety of 
their ve^ir^els. "Italian merchantmen on the high seas 
flev/ the flag of another nation as a l'>etter protection against 
capture."^ "Even the coasts wc-re threat^;n'':d by Bar- 
bary pirates again:;t whr/m the government a.«uld fmd no 
other help than to ercjct 382 towers on the coasts, not to 
defend them, but t/j raise the alarm ami-jng the people, so 
that in case of rlanger they could v/ithdrav/ from the fields 
U.» enclosed places." ' In case of neglect to claim the pro- 
tection of the flag of s^^me strong naval [>ower, remarks an 
English tourist in 1741, mariners "are so much pestered 
with the Algerines that they are forced Uj carry in their 

143 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

vessels a little boat, into which when they see the Alger- 
ines, or aiiy other enemy niaking towards them, they cast 
their provisions away, and make to the next port, leaving 
their vessel behind them ; upon which very often t heir ene- 
mies go away, not much valuing their vessels or goods, the 
chief prey which they hunt for being their men to carry 
into slavery. The princes and states of Italy arc not in any 
condition to clear the seas of these robbers." * 

♦ 

III 

Few modem travelers in Europe count it as one of the 
possibilities of a Continental tour that they may be robbed 
on their jouniey. Except for small pilfering, such as 
one may expect almost anywhere, the ordinary traveler 
in Europe has little occasion to fear for his valuables or 
his personal safety, and probably not one tourist in a 
thousand goes armed. 

In the eighteenth century the danger was more serious. 
Of course, the great majority of travelers were never 
molested. But danger there still was and far more than 
one would now ordinarily encounter in any civilized coun- 
try. One who traveled widely, particularly in the south of 
Europe, could not count with entire certainty on arriving 
unmolested at his destination. Very significant is the sug- 
gestion in an eighteenth-century book of advice to trav- 
elers: "Double-barrelled pistols are very well calculated 
for the defence of the traveller, particularly those which 
have both barrels above, and do not require turning." ■^ 

So common was the carrying of anus that some cities, 
as for instance Lucca, required pistols and swords to be 
given up at the gate of entry, and returned them when the 
tourist departed. The fees often amounted by the end of 
the journey to as much as the weapons were worth.^ In 
time of war and social unrest highwaymen may be ex- 
pected anywhere; but in the eighteenth century they had 
to be reckoned with, even in the leading countries of Eu- 
rope, during periods of profound peace. Police protection 

144 



AN INTRRRUPTF.D JOURNEY 




■.^-mtimt^tiitm^mmiimm 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

was imperfect in London itself, and the English roads were 
notoriously insecure.^ Walpole complains in 1774: "Our 
roads are so infested by highwaymen, that it is dangerous 
stirring out almost by day"; and he adds interesting 
particulars.^ 

^ In France the mounted police had largely cleared out the 
highwaymen that were the pest of the seventeenth century,^ 
but it was still hazardous to travel at night unarmed, or to 
traverse dense forests without a guard. Some streets of 
Paris were especially frequented by robbers ^ and so were 
the bridges. A real danger to tourists in almost every city 
arose from the generally unlighted streets. Even though a 
street lantern might be hung here and there in a few cities, 
the light barely made the lantern itself visible. No thief 
had much reason to fear recognition or pursuit after night- 
fall. The only safe thing to do was to carry a lantern one's 
self after ten at night, and so to carry it as to throw the 
light into all alleyways and lurking-places. And in many 
cities such lanterns were required by law. At Saint-Omer, 
notes a tourist in 1776, "After ten at night in the summer,' 
and much sooner in the winter, a person passing along the 
street must have a lanthorn, or candle, or torch, Hghted 
in his hand, or be attended by a light, or must show that 
he has just had some such; without which ceremony any 
gentleman is in danger of being taken up as a suspicious 
person and carried to prison." ^ 

At Dieppe, we read, "Every person who is abroad with- 
out a lanthorn, after ten at night, is taken into custody by 
the poHce. With their eariy hours, ten is equivalent to our 
twelve." ^ 

In the matter of lighting the streets the largest Italian 
cities were very backward. "What is the greatest dis- 
grace to Rome, and indeed, to every city in Italy, is the 
uncomfortableness and danger of passing through the 
streets after sunset; for there is not the least provision 
made for lighting them. London seems to be the single town 
in Europe where that convenience is rightly understood, and 
carried effectually into execution; for, at Paris, the candles 

145 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

in their brown glass lanterns i:ive but little li{j:ht, whilst 
they do bum, and, beini:; small, are soon extin«::uished." * 

Amonj:: Italian cities Palenno was a notable exception for 
being well lighted. Some parts of Europe, indeed, were 
"so safe in the day that a child might travel with a purse 
of gold and not be robbed of it." ' And at night, though 
there was more risk, one seldom met a highwayman. In 
Germany there were "few robberies and fewer murders." ' 
Even in the dense Spezzart Forest, near AschatTei^burg, 
"for twenty years," says a traveler, "there has not been an 
instance of any person being attacked." In the early seven- 
teenth century/ however, and throughout the Thirty 
Years' War, Gennany was notorious for crimes of the road. 

Judged by the standards of the eighteenth century, Italy 
aflorded reasonable security to travelers, though to us 
there seems much to be desired. Ui")on Italy a well-in- 
fonned French traveler bestowed the moderate praise that 
in general less was stolen there than in England.* But the 
multiplication of small states afforded peculiar temptation 
to crime. Gentlemen "vN-ill be upon their guard," suggests 
a contemporary guide-book,' "not to lodge at night where 
two states border, for there most robberies and murders 
are committed, as the olTenders in half an hour may get 
out of the reach of justice from that territory where the 
act is committed." 

Long after the close of the eighteenth century, personal 
safety was very insecure in many parts of Italy. Says Tre- 
velyan, "In the matter of taking human life Italian civ'ili- 
sation was, perhaps, at very much the same stage of evo- 
lution in 184S as English civilisation had been two hmidred 
and twenty years before, when the 'killing affray' was only 
just in process of dpng out." ' Particularly in southern 
Italy human life counted for little. Every year in the 
Kingdom of Naples a thousand persons were killed. From 
four to five thousand assassins * were at the service of any 
one with a grudge to satisfy. People went armed for 
olTense or defense, almost all with pistol, knife, or musket.' 
Naturally enough, robberies were most frequent in the 

146 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

states that were worst governed. Conditions in the 
Kingdom of Naples were perennially ?;ad. "The land 
roads were infested with robbers and brigands, so that 
the government recommended travelers to go in cara- 
vans." ' Now and then there would be an improvement 
for a time, followed by a period of social unrest that 
brought back the old evils.* 

Commenting upon the caravans, Misson remarks that 
"at present there is no danger," adding, however, "But 
tho' the profest banditti are extirpated, there are still re- 
maining a great number of others who are little better." ' 
In another place, nevertheless, he says: "Highway robbers 
are no more dangerous in this country than scorpions or 
tarantulas; for there have not been any banditti at Rome 
since the pontificate of Sixtus V." * 

In his turn, Keysler, writing about 1730, says: "One 
may now travel with as much safety in Italy as in any 
other country." ^ Yet in speaking of excursions to Vesuvius 
and elsewhere he says: "A traveller should by all means 
carry fire-arms with him on these occasions; those people 
being trained up to rob and murder, and accustomed to 
wear at their side large couteaux." * 

Peculiarly bad was the reputation of the Papal States, 
and especially of the Roman Campagna.^ But we must re- 
member that Italy was made up of many States widely 
differing in character, and that a sweeping statement is 
hazardous. Owing, doubtless, to the fact that most English 
tourists were well protected, the number of those who were 
disturbed on the road was relatively small. Moreover, as 
the well-informed English traveler Sherlock, writing about 
1780, remarks: "The nation is exceedingly poor, and that 
counsellor of evil. Hunger, makes them commit many 
rogueries. It is not, however, as is generally believed, a 
country of robbers and assassins. My countrymen travel 
there almost continually, and for thirty years past there 
has been but one accident which has happened to them, 
or to any of their people; and even that ought not to be 
mentioned as an exception. As the courier of an English 

147 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

duke was passing a river, he struck one of the boatmen with 
his whip, and the boatmen shot him." It is worth noting 
that he adds: "The country in general, especially Naples, 
swarms with pick-pockets." ^ 

But while great robberies were few, small pilfering was 
common. Thieves would sneak up behind a traveler's 
carriage, cut the straps that fastened trunks or portman- 
teaus, and make off with their booty unperceived. In going 
from Sinigaglia to Ancona, Dr. Moore observed suspicicnis- 
looking "men in sailors' dresses. . . . Our company was 
too numerous to be attacked; but they attempted, secretly, 
to cut off the trunks from the chaises, without succeeding." ^ 

"Travellers," says Berchtold, "should not permit stran- 
gers to place themselves behind their vehicle, under any 
pretext whatsoever, because there are innumerable in- 
stances of coaches having been disabled from proceeding, 
and unsuspecting travellers robbed and killed by this 
scheme. In suspicious places, the trunk should be placed 
before the coach; which place should generally be made 
use of as often as circumstances ^vill permit." ' 

Travelers sometimes invited attack by a foolish display 
of wealth. Nugent warns tourists against pulling out 
money or other valuables before strange company on the 
roads or at inns. "If this be a salutary advice in all coun- 
tries, 'tis especially so in Italy, where though the public 
roads are not much infested with highwaymen, yet there are 
a great many villains who are ready to murder or assassin- 
ate a stranger in private houses, when they happen to have 
a prospect of some considerable prey. 'Tis proper also to 
travel with arms, such as a sword and a pair of pistols, and 
likewise with a tinder-box, in order to strike a fire in case of 
any accident in the night." * 

Very significant are Misson's instructions to travelers, 
which, by the way, are repeated almost word for word in 
Coghlan's "Handbook for Italy," (p. iii), published in 
1847 : "A traveller ought always to be furnished with some 
iron machine to shut his door on the inside, which may be 
easily contrived and made of several sorts; for it happens 

148 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

not unfrequently that the doors of the lodging houses have 
neither locks nor bolts." ' 

Berchtold admonishes tourists in 1787: "Familiarity 
with fellow travellers beyond a certain degree is very im- 
prudent, and may sometimes produce dreadful conse- 
quences; never ask another man's name, the motive of his 
travelling, the time he intends to continue in a place ; and 
if you observe that people wish to know your concerns, 
answer them with circumspection, in such a manner as may 
make them give up their curiosity without being offended. "^ 

But, as already remarked, notwithstanding an occasional 
highway robbery, the British tourist in general suffered very 
little loss or personal injury. Yet the tradition of Italian 
bandits maintained itself throughout the century and al- 
most down to our own time. Unquestionably, there were 
in the aggregate a good many desperadoes who turned to 
robbery, and even murder, if necessary, as the easiest way 
of making a living; but as a rule the danger was not suffi- 
cient to justify even a timid traveler in staying at home. 
Just as in our day the number of brigands in Sicily has 
varied with the price of sulphur, so in the eighteenth cen- 
tury the number of robbers along the roads increased or 
diminished according to the general poverty of the coun- 
try and the laxity of the government. There was naturally 
wide difference in the degree of danger to be encountered 
in different parts of the country. 

IV 

In all parts of Europe tourists were hampered in varying 
measure by antiquated official regulations that had come 
down from the Middle Ages. Judged by liberal modem 
standards, eighteenth-century administration appears 
stiffly bureaucratic and strangely lacking in breadth of 
view. The modem traveler now and then feels slightly 
annoyed when he is obliged at a German, and occasionally 
at a French, hotel to give his name, address, occupation, 
the name of the place he has come from, and of the place to 

149 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

which he is going. But the annoyance in our day is trivial 
beside that to which the traveler of a century and a half ago 
was subjected. From the moment that he landed on the 
Continent he had the uncomfortable feeling of being 
watched. Everywhere he was liable to the pottering in- 
quisitiveness of petty officials disposed to magnify their 
office. Perpetual presentation of evidence that one was 
one's self, and not a dangerous criminal or an escaped politi- 
cal conspirator, was the rule. For his own peace the t(5ur- 
ist was, therefore, quite as solicitous to carry satisfactory 
identification papers as he was to carry a full purse. The 
interference with the freedom of travelers was practically 
universal and unremitting, though, of course, more annoying 
in times of war than of peace. The police thereby doubtless 
easily kept an eye upon strangers, but in periods of tran- 
quillity the outlay of time and money for this purpose 
seems out of all proportion to the benefits obtained. 

Suspicion and jealousy of strangers were only too com- 
mon in days when a special effort was required in order to 
go anywhere; and suspicion was the greater when one 
conversed in a foreign tongue. Accordingly, frequent 
registration, and application for licenses to do this or that, 
are among the most characteristic experiences of travelers 
in the eighteenth century. Whenever one left Paris or 
Rome or Vienna the same tedious formalities must be gone 
through. The passport must be visaed by the proper 
official and the fee paid. Time that was desired for busi- 
ness or sight-seeing must be sacrificed in order that the 
suspicions of the government might be satisfied. Trav- 
elers of all types agree that the passport was an unending 
nuisance. Not merely had the precious docvunent in many 
cases to be surrendered, but it could not be recovered with- 
out the payment of a fee. 

Unpleasant as conditions were in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, they were infinitely worse in the seventeenth. When 
Coryate landed at Calais, he tells us: "Presently after 
my arrival, I was brought with the rest of my company 
to the Deputy Governor of the towne. , . . For it is 

ISO 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

the custome of the towne, that whensoever any strangers 
arrive there, they are brought before the Deputy Gov- 
ernor, to the end to be examined about the occasion 
of their comming thither, whither they travell, and to 
have their names inrolled before they go to their lodg- 
ing.' . . . They have a very strict order in this towne, 
that if any stranger of what Nation soever he be, shall 
be taken walking by himself, either towards their Fort- 
resse, which they call the Rice-banke, or about the greene 
of the towne, he shall be apprehended by some Soul- 
diers, and carried to the Deputy Governor, and com- 
mitted to safe custody till he hath paid some fee for his 
ransome." ^ 

In 1 64 1, Evelyn was thus held up at Lillo on his way 
to Antwerp: "Being taken before the Governor, he de- 
manded my pass, to which he set his hand, and asked 
two rix-dollars for a fee, which methought appeared 
very exorbitant in a soldier of his quality. I told him 
that I had already purchased my pass of the commis- 
saries at Rotterdam; at which, in a great fury, snatch- 
ing the paper out of my hand, he flung it scornfully under 
the table, and bade me try whether I could get to Ant- 
werp without his permission: but I had no sooner given 
him the dollars, than he returned the passport surlily 
enough, and made me pay fourteen Dutch shillings 
to the cantone, or searcher, for my contempt, which I 
was glad to do for fear of further trouble, lest he should 
have discovered my Spanish pass, in which the States 
were therein treated by the name of rebels. Besides all 
these exactions I gave the commissary six shillings, to 
the soldiers something, and, ere perfectly clear of this 
frontier, thirty-one stivers to the man-of-war, who lay 
blocking up the river betwixt Lillo and the opposite 
sconce called Lifkinshoeck."' 

This treatment, we must remember, was not given to 
a humble laborer, but to a man of substance and recog- 
nized social position. And similar incidents could be 
multiplied indefinitely. The eighteenth century kept 

151 



SOMK OANGEKS AND ANNOYANCES 

onoii.uh of the old ospioiiai^o to put the tourist to much iti- 
ootivonionco. Iti Frnntv. Carr atui his conipatiiou were 
mwr boiug dotainoil a wivk because the latter haii broui^ht 
no pass.' And this, more than a eetitnry and a half after 
Evelyn's experience. 

In !-io country, however, that tom^ists commonly visited 
were registration and presetUatiiM\ of evidcTico of one's 
idei\tity so continual an annoyaiice as in Italy.* Nui^ent 
forewarns the tourist: "In travellini: thro' Italy \*ou 
should be careful not to be without the passport of some 
prince, ambassador, or cardinal, by which means you 
will pass immolested thro' every city and fortified town; 
and. what is extremely convenient, if the customs-otricers 
should want to see your baj^5::ai::e, showinj:: your pass- 
port, you are exempt from any kind of duty. Another 
advantai^e of these passports is that on the confines of 
neii^hbourinj: states they are looked upon as a bill of 
health, if it be not lost thro' fori^et fulness. It is to be 
observed, however, that those who have not a passport 
must take a bill of health at I>olot;Tia to enter the Grand 
Duke's territories, otheri^'isc they will be obli.ijcd to re- 
turn to Boloi^na." ' 

At Genoa, we are told. "When atu' person arrives here, 
he must either v:o himself, or send his own servant, to 
the town-house, to s::ive in his name, country, and station 
of life. lie then receives a billet, without which the people 
of the inn cannot answer letting him lie in the house." * 
So, too. at Ferr:ira, "Strani^ers must have a note from 
the townihouse before they can be admitted to lie in a pub- 
lic house." * 

On entering Lucca, says Wright, "At the gate the 
otTicers took all the fire-lu^ns we had in their custody, 
and gave us a tally for restoring them at our going away: 
they likewise gave us a billet to be delivered to the 
landlord at the inn. without which he could not receive 
us." " 

"^M\ile the Papal Govemn\ent continued it was nec- 
essary, on lea\'ing Florence for Rome, to have, besides 

152 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

a pasr;port, a /a.vaa pa.^sare for the c*ntrancc of the Roman 
state and another for the J^jrta del Popolo." ' 

One needed a Neapolitan passport in order to yo frr^m 
Rome to Naples and another — to be [procured at Naj^les 
— in order to return.^ 

In Germany, one's passport was constantly demanded. 
One could not land at Ma;ylebur;( from an Elbe vessel 
until one's identity was established.^ At Colo^^ne a stranger 
was interrogated with great thoroughness. Here, as 
late as 1794, Cogan remarks: "Having thus j^assed a 
severe examination at the outward gate, we were per- 
mitted by the guardian genius of the second enclosure 
to enter the holy city without any official enquiries." * 
The same formality was encountered, with varying de- 
tail, throughout the Empire. 

To get out of a country was almost as difficnjlt as to 
get into it. In April of 1762, Sterne had to go "to Ver- 
sailles to solicit the necessary passports from the Duke 
of Choiseul." ^' In 1773, a tourist, wishing to leave Paris, 
had to do the following: "The day before I left Paris 
I was fully employed in hiring a coach, for which I gave 
six guineas to M. Paschall, in obtaining an order from 
the Po::t-Master General to be furnir-:hed on the road with 
six horses, in getting a passport from our Ambassador to 
return without molestation, and in obtaining another 
pa:;sport signed by the King of France and counter- 
signed by the Duke of Choiseul, to permit a poor English- 
man to return to his own country, after having spent all 
the money he had ?.»rought with him." •■' 

"Without a pa:-:sport one could not go out of Paris 
with post-horses. And it was the same with the garri- 
son and frontier cities of the kingdom, where an order 
of the commandant or the royal lieutenant of the place 
was required." ' Application to a municipal ofilcer in- 
stead of to one's ambassador merely postponed one's 
departure from Paris. "vSeveral EngHshmen," :says 
Carr, "whilst I was at Paris, met with very vexatious 
delays in procuring their passports to enable them to 

153 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

leave it, from a mistaken course of application." * We 
might multiply similar experiences of the tourist in other 
parts of the Continent,' but there is nothing gained by 
the rcpetitioti. 

Let us turn to another official document of almost 
equal importance — the bill of health. Well meant, and 
doubtless in some sense necessary, was the bill of health, 
which indicated that the traveler was not likely to be a 
carrier of disease. This was an old requirement wlMch 
was long continued. Says Coryate, early in the seven- 
teenth century, "At Lj'ons our billes of health began: 
without the which we could not be received into any of 
those cities that lay in our way towards Italy. For the 
Italians are so curious and scnxpulous in many of their 
cities, especially those that I passed through in Lom- 
bardy, that they will admit no stranger \A'ithin the waJs 
of their citie, except he bringeth a bill of health from 
the last citie he came from, to testify that he was free 
from all manner of contagious sicknesse when he came 
from the last citie. But the Venetians are extraordin- 
arily precise herein, insomuch that a man cannot be 
received into Venice \\'ithout a bill of health, if he would 
give a thousand duckets. But the like strictnesse I did 
not observe in those cities of Lombardy, through the 
which I passed in my retume from Venice homeward. 
For they received me into Vicenza, Verona, Brixia, Ber- 
gomo, etc., without any such bill." ' 

Later tourists frequently make reference to the cer- 
tificate of health that each was obliged to carry.* "When 
you depart from any city," says Ray, "you must be sure 
to take a bill of health out of the office that is kept every- 
where for that purpose, without which you can hardly 
get to be admitted into another city, especially if it be 
in the territory of another prince or state. If any one 
comes from an infected or suspected place, he is forced 
to keep his quarantain (as they call it) that is, be shut 
up in the Lazaretto or pest-house forty days." * 

For the eighteenth century', Nugent testifies to the 

IS4 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

same requirements. "Coming back [to Italy] from Ger- 
many this way" (i.e., through Carinthia and Styria), "you 
must be provided with a passport of health, otherwise 
you will be forced to go back, or obliged to perform quar- 
antine for forty days." ' 

"We left Ravenna," says Wright, "with a double 
fede (or testimonial), one to certify that we were well, 
the other that we were sick; the former, on account of 
their fear of the plague, to get us entrance into their 
cities; and the other, (it being Lent,) to get us some grasso 
(flesh-meat) in the inns." ^ 

In view of the laxity with which the certificates of health 
were issued, the insistence of some towns upon compli- 
ance with every official formality appears sufficiently 
ridiculous. At Lucca, adds Wright, "we were forced 
to have not only ourselves and servants, but our horses 
and our dog specified in onr fede." ^ 

However unintelligent in actual operation some of 
these regulations of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies appear to us, they were the outcome of a whole- 
some terror of the ravages of the plague and various 
other types of disease that were only too common. In- 
deed, to the man of to-day the greatest peril of the tour 
would seem to be the constant exposure to unsanitary 
conditions, to damp, ill-heated houses, to improper food, 
to nameless dirt. In many cities, partictilarly in Italy, 
the streets were unspeakably filthy when they were wet 
and full of pestilent clouds of dust when they were dry. 
The Doge's Palace at Venice was made a very sty by the 
constant defilement of the entrance and the corridors.* 
The same was true of public buildings and even churches 
throughout the peninsula.^ Even yet the sense of de- 
cency in many parts of Italy is only rudimentary among the 
lower classes. Until within two or three decades many 
of the most frequented countries of Europe have been 
strangely slow in adopting modem sanitary appliances. 
And to this day a good number of somewhat pretentious 
hostelries in France, to say nothing of Spain, put a severe 

155 



\ 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

strain upon the patience of tourists not too fastidious. 
As may be supposed, the water-supply was in most towns 
a constant source of danger. Paris and Venice had an 
especially bad reputation in this particular.' 

Obviously, the certification of the harmlessness of the 
tourist necessitated a constant interruption of his jour- 
ney. But there were hindrances of another sort. Even 
when one's official papers were all in order, one had to 
make allowance for the possibility of arriving too l^e 
at night for admittance into a town. Police regulations 
were strict, often peculiar to the district, and therefore 
difficult to know in advance. Most cities of any size 
were walled and the gates generally shut at nightfall. 
After that time entrance was difficult, if not impossible. 
Matters had improved somewhat since Fynes Moryson's 
time, when, even at dinner time, the gates of Dresden 
were shut and the streets chained.^ But eighteenth- 
century tourists constantly refer to the closing of the 
gates at nightfall as a matter of course.' Says Dr. Moore: 
"We left Milan at midnight, and arrived the next day 
at Tiuin before the shutting of the gates." * 

When going to Rotterdam, James Edward Smith and 
liis party had taken a gorgeous coach "lined with red 
velvet and drawn by three horses abreast." On their 
arrival "the gates were shut," and they "were obliged 
to seek a lodging in the suburbs; nor was that easy to be 
had. . . . The manner, indeed, of the Dutch in general 
is quite opposite to what the French call accucillante."^ 
Facts of this sort may now and then explain the appar- 
ent indifference of travelers to notable sights along' the 
road or in small towns: they are merely trying in their 
haste to escape a night of exposure outside the gates. 



If we were to place the discussion of eighteenth-century 
custom-houses along with the discussion of robberies, 
we should doubtless follow what, in the opinion of many 

156 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

tourists of that time, would appear to be a natural order. 
Throughout the greater part of Europe a narrow-minded 
policy of commercial exchange hampered the free move- 
ment of merchandise across frontiers. Where a country- 
was split up into a variety of unrelated governments, 
each insisting upon its rights, foreign commerce obviously 
suffered in proportion to the restrictions laid upon it.^ 
The personal belongings of the tourist were treated in 
much the same way as all merchandise. 

Numerous passages in eighteenth-century books of 
travel comment upon the ever-recurring examination 
of the travelers' personal luggage. This is, even now, 
no special pleasure, but a century and a half ago it was 
an endless vexation, often involving the entire repacking 
of one's effects — in so far as they were not confiscated 
— and the payment of heavy duties. One could often 
escape by bribing the officials, but that put some strain 
upon a sensitive conscience. Yet without some such 
help one was liable to be held up for hours, while the 
contents of trunks and portmanteaus were spread over 
the ground at the pleasiire of the officials. In view of the 
liability to confiscation tourists were warned; "Since it 
is impossible to know what goods are forbidden in dif- 
ferent countries, information on that head should be 
had before foreigners enter into another territory, in 
order to avoid many inconveniences which might arrive 
from trifles: in some countries the whole luggage is con- 
fiscated if prohibited goods are found with them, and 
the owners condemned to imprisonment, or to pay a 
heavy fine." ^ 

Very illuminating is the advice as to the amount and 
character of the luggage a traveler should carry. The 
"expence of the carriage of it ... in some countries 
amounts," we are told, "to much more than the passage 
of his person and servant." ^ If the stage-coach or dil- 
igence was too heavily loaded, part of the luggage was 
left behind, and the traveler got it again when he could! 
And, finally, travelers were "frequently charged" at the 

157 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

inns "accordinj:: to the quantity of ba^.ciagc and con- 
veniences" they carried with them.* "For going any 
distance short and high trunks are preferable to long 
and low ones; because they can be put upon any car- 
riage whatever. The solidity of a trunk is also one of 
its necessary qualities, it being sometimes most unmer- 
cifully handled by the Custom-House ollicers. Travel- 
lers should never pennit revenue officers to visit two 
trunks at the same time, as the owner's eyes and atten- 
tion may be fixed on one, at the great hazard of his being 
pillaged by the other." ' 

We can attempt no systematic account of the customs 
regulations in different countries, but we may cite a few 
typical cases, and may well begin with the ordinary e.\- 
perience of the tourist landing at Calais. This is pre- 
sented in considerable detail in the most popular guide- 
book of the middle of the eighteenth century: "Upon 
approaching the town, you see several batteries of cannon 
planted on the shore, to keep the coast clear in war time. 
Coming ashore, you'll meet with men-waiters who speak 
English, and make it their business to ply there, on Eng- 
lish vessels coming in, and who will conduct you and 
attend you in Calais, till you have got into your post- 
chaise for Paris. Having pitched upon one of these, you 
are conducted by a soldier upon the guard, which is al- 
ways mounted upon the quay, to a searching oflicc just 
by, where you must give in your name and quality, the 
purpose of your coming over, and intended tour: thence 
you are shown into a small inner room and very ci\'ily 
searched by the proper officer, who only just presses 
upon your coat-pockets or outer garments; aftenvards 
the soldier conducts you to the governor's house, where 
you are shewn to the governor. When this farce is over, 
you are at liberty to proceed to your inn, whither you 
are attended by the person or servant whom you pitched 
upon at the water-side. There are several good inns 
at Calais, as the Golden Anns, the Golden Head, the 
French Horn, the Table Roval, and the Silver Lion, the 

15S 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

last of which, kept by Grandsirc, is reckoned the best. 
When you have refreshed yourself, you had best ^o your- 
self to the custom-house, where you will find your bag- 
Kaj^e has been carried by porters from the vessel, and will 
be there searched, to prevent your brin^in;:^ in anything 
new of a foreign manufacture. They allow only one watch 
to each person, and if they find any new cloathes, they 
will stop them. After your baggage has been searched, 
you had better have your trunk plum?jed with a leaden 
stamp for Paris; for this will prevent the trouble of any 
further search of your baggage upon the road, or its 
being carried to the custom-house when you come to 
Paris: but you must take care not to open the custom- 
house cordage and plumbing till you get to that metrop- 
olis; for on going out of Calais, and at several other gar- 
ison towns, both your Calais custom-house pass (which 
they give you in writing and which you must take care 
of) and also the plumbing of your trunk are examined. 
Therefore your best way is to take out at the custom- 
house at Calais what necessaries you may want on the 
road. The fees at the custom-house for the pass, for 
your cloathes and necessaries, and for the plumbing 
your trunks are very trifling; but if they arc civil and do 
not tumble your cloathes, it is customary to give the 
ofTicer half a crown. The porters who carry your goods 
from the ship to the custom-house, and from the cus- 
tom-house to the inn, arc like our watermen, never satis- 
fied; about a livre for carrying each trunk will pay them; 
and three livres when you get into your post-chaise, will 
be sufTicient for your attendant, who keeps close to you 
till you are gone, and shows you anything the town affords, 
which is but indifferent. " * 

In France duties were "laid on all kinds of merchandise 
either brought in or carried out of the kingdom, and aLso 
on the import and export from and to the provinces." ^ 
Besides these there were octroi charges on many articles 
collected at the gates of cities.^ But oftentimes the cus- 
toms officials were not averse to increasing their incomes 

159 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

by politely failing to discover dutiable articles. "We 
were stopt," says Essex, "as we were going out of the Gates 
of Calis by the Custom-house Officers who wanted to 
search our baggage, but seeing a 12 sou piece in our valet's 
hand, they turned their attention that way and suffered 
us to pass." ' 

On Smollett's return to France from Italy in 1766, he 
notes: "As for our small trunks or portmanteaus, which 
we carried along with us, they were examined at Antibes; 
but the ceremony was performed very superficially, in 
consequence of tipping the searcher with half a crown, which 
is a wonderful conciliator at all the bureaus in this coun- 
try." 2 

James Edward Smith remarks at Lyons: "Our trunks 
passed the custom-house for a little gratuity unopened, 
which is generally the best way." ' In general, the officials 
on the Savoy frontier were very lenient, notes the Abbe 
Coyer in 1775.* 

But it is time to turn to Italy. The number of separate 
governments in the peninsula rendered the tourist liable 
to frequent inspection,* although, as Nugent observes, 
"In travelling thro' Italy . . . what is extremely con- 
venient, if the custom-officers should want to see your 
baggage, showing your passport, you are exempted from 
any kind of duty." ^ 

A still better plan, apart from the inconvenience of 
having no use of one's extra clothing and other possessions, 
was to seal up the luggage and thus escape further visi- 
tation at the successive custom-houses. This is repeatedly 
recommended by tourists in France, in Italy, in Germany, in 
the Austrian Low Countries.' Even individual cities re- 
tained the right to search everything unsealed that passed 
through the gates.^ Of Pistoia, for example, Northall 
remarks: "At the port gate of the town they search all 
baggage, to see if there is any tobacco ; and if they find any 
quantity above a pound they seize everything. They also 
seize all such apparel that has not been worn ; at least they 
oblige strangers to pay duty for it, if only a pair of shoes." ^ 

160 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

We cannot afford space for much detail, but we note that 
in Keysler's day certain cities had an especially evil repu- 
tation for the venality of the customs officials : ' ' The cus- 
toms and duties are nowhere on so bad a footing as at 
Milan; a small gratuity to the officers, who importunately 
ask it, puts an end to all further search and questions; 
whereas, in Piedmont, the extreme severity on this head 
often puts travellers to a great deal of unnecessary delay 
and trouble." ' 

As for Rome, the goal of nearly every tourist, the cus- 
toms examination afforded no special annoyance,^ except 
that one must drive at once to the dogana before going to 
the inn and submit to a search for prohibited books.' 
Travelers occasionally complain of the severity with which 
their books and papers were scrutinized. Says a tourist 
in 174 1 : "It was impracticable for us to keep a journal in a 
country where our papers and books were so often liable to 
be looked into by bigotted inquisitors." * 

On the land journey from Rome to Naples the ordinary 
tourist was little troubled. James Edward Smith's party 
escaped unexamined by paying a shabby-looking official a 
bribe worth a shilling.^ But upon merchandise in any 
quantity the tariffs imposed a heavy burden, written, as 
they were, "in an unintelligible and ambiguous jargon, 
variable according to the caprice and greed of the col- 
lectors." ^ 

The return journey to Rome from Naples was more an- 
noying, especially during the first half-day, since tourists 
were supposed to be laden with commodities of Naples — 
particularly silk stockings — which should pay export duties. 
Bromley was stopped six or seven times for examinations, 
but a small bribe cooled the zeal of the inspectors.'' 

In striking contrast with the niggling inquisitiveness in 
some parts of Italy was the laxity of the examination at 
Venice. Even late in the seventeenth century Burnet 
notes with amazement: "Tho' we had a mullet's^ load 
of trunks and portmanteaus, yet none offered to ask us, 
either coming or going, what we were or what we carried 

161 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

with us."* And Misson tells the same tale: "The toll- 
gatherers saw us enter into the Lagiinas without speaking 
one word to us, tho' we had a considerable quantity of 
baggage; but in other parts of Italy the tolls are very 
frequent and troublesome." ' 

With Venice we may conclude our rapid survey of Italian 
custom-houses. On summarizing the experiences of tour- 
ists we find that beyond an occasional petty exaction or 
confiscation one suffered no more actual loss in* passing 
through the custom-houses of Italy than in some other parts 
of Europe. But the multiplication of frontiers subjected 
every passing stranger to frequent delay and annoyance 
and habituated him to the belief that every small official 
could be bought. 

We now turn to Germany. The frequency of the chal- 
lenge of custom-house officials was one of the least pleas- 
urable experiences of travel in Germany. As elsewhere 
observed, Germany had a vast number of petty govern- 
ments, each practically independent and each legally war- 
ranted in imposing an}"" duties it pleased. If this right had 
been pushed to the limit, travel and commerce would have 
been practically impossible. As a matter of fact, the tour- 
ist, proxnded with a passport and obviously not a merchant, 
escaped with comparative immunity. Misson, indeed, says 
that in his day "Travellers are not stopped on account 
of customs or imposts, either in Holland or Germany." ^ 
But later tourists tell a somewhat different talc.'' Dr. Moore 
went to Vienna, as so many other English tourists did. 
"On arriving at Vienna," says he, "the postillions drive 
directly to the Custom-house, where the baggage under- 
goes a very severe scrutiny, which neither fair words nor 
money can mitigate."^ Books in particular were retained 
to be carefully scrutinized. 

Baron Riesbeck, going by way of Passau to Vienna about 
a decade before the outbreak of the French Revolution, says : 
"At Engellhastzell our baggage was searched. Every thing 
was conducted in the best order possible, and with a great 

162 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

deal of gentleness; the putting of the custom-house seals 
to the merchandise of our vessel took up a whole day. . . . 
As for me, the searchers directed their whole attention to my 
books ; they took away from me Young's ' Night Thoughts,' 
which I had purchased out of compassion from a poor 
student at Saltzburg, but suffered Gibbon's 'Works' to 
pass."' 

In the last decade of the century Mariana Starke com- 
plains that when she crossed the frontier of Carinthia the 
baggage was examined in the open street of a miserable 
town and small parcels were thrown under the coach by 
the thievish officials, to be gathered up later. "They seize 
gold and silver lace, snuff, and tobacco, and for unmade 
silks, gauzes, etc., they oblige you to deposit double the 
worth, to be paid back, however, when you quit the im- 
perial territories. They accept no fees, and are slower in 
their operations than it is possible to conceive." ^ 

All in all, the most enlightened state in Germany was 
Prussia. But the policy of Frederick the Great was to in- 
crease exports as much as possible and to reduce imports 
to the minimum. In 1766 the importation of four hundred 
and ninety commodities hitherto admitted on the payment 
of heavy duties was absolutely prohibited. The tourist 
incautious enough to be detected with any of these things 
among his effects — a bit of porcelain, for example — suf- 
fered accordingly. And the multitude of customs officials 
made concealment difficult. 

But the region in which the tourist's progress was most 
interrupted by customs examinations and the collection 
of tolls from vessels, even though he might himself escape 
paying duties, was the Palatinate and the Valley of the 
Rhine.^ In the Palatinate, we are told, "everything was 
taxed but the air," and all goods that passed through were 
subject to some import. The Rhine was in particular the 
paradise of the toll-gatherer. Tolls were "exacted by 
every distinct potentate and in every distinct jurisdiction."^ 
Between Mainz and Andemach, a distance of sixty-three 
English miles, there were ten tolls to pay. Tourists natu- 

163 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

rally enough express their surprise that, in view of the im- 
mense number of exactions of custom-houses, the river 
traffic was as great as it was.^ A vessel plying between Co- 
logne and Amsterdam or Rotterdam paid twelve tolls on 
every trip.^ The tolls were attended to by the master of 
the vessel. Not unnaturally, tourists, who had been "sub- 
ject from the officers of the revenue to the most disagree- 
able enquiries and vexatious delays" in various despotic 
states of Germany, felt "a sensation peculiarly agreeable 
on entering Hamburg," where they had simply to give 
their names "at the gates without any examination or 
custom-house embarrassments . ' ' ' 

As for the Austrian Low Countries, the records of tour- 
ists in the second half of the eighteenth century show the 
same petty interference that we have noted elsewhere. 
As a typical instance, take the experience of James Essex, 
a very respectable English tourist, who in 1773 crossed the 
frontier of the Low Coimtries at Dunkerque: "When we 
came to the first Barrier about halfe a mile from the City, 
we were stopt by the Custom house Officer and paid 6 d. to 
avoid a search, when we entered the Gates we were stopt 
by the Guard and obliged to write our names and the place 
of our abode, which was sent to the Governor." ^ At 
Nieuport, says he, "we met with some trouble from the 
Custom house Officers who in our absence open'd every 
part of our baggage & tumbled all our things in a disagree- 
able manner." ^ At Ghent we "were stopt at the Gate by 
the Custom house officers to examine our baggage and by 
the Guard to give in our names to be sent to the Governor." ^ 

Another totuist, who was on the Continent between 1787 
and 1789, complains that at Ostend, "Everything was 
thrown into beautiful confusion, and besides half-a-crown 
for three yards of small cord, and two leaden seals about 
the size of a half -penny, I was sentenced to pay one shilling 
and sixpence for two pairs of unwashed stockings. My 
new shoes escaped taxation by putting them on in presence 
of the inquisitors." ' 

In comparison with other parts of Europe tourists in 

164 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

Holland enjoyed comparative immunity from annoyance 
at the custom-house, a policy in harmony with the liberal 
views of the Dutch on a multitude of other matters in the 
eighteenth century. 

Far less agreeable was the reception that the returning 
tourist met at Dover. After he had traversed most of Eu- 
rope and his heart beat faster as he neared his native land, 
his enthusiasm was chilled and his temper embittered by 
the exactions at the custom-house. An instance or two 
will suffice. Horace Walpole paid a duty of seven and a 
half guineas on "a common set of coffee things that had 
cost me but five."' On November ii, 1764, the Right 
Honorable Thomas Townshend writes to George Selwyn: 
"The strictness of the Custom-House officers still con- 
tinues. Mr. Rigby brought one fine suit of clothes, which 
he saved by wearing it when he landed. Mr. Elliot saved 
a coat and waistcoat by the same means, but not having 
taken the same precautions for the breeches, they were 
seized and burnt." ^ And the Earl of Tyrone, on December 
20 of the same year, in a letter to Selwyn, says: " I did not 
recover my sea-sickness enough to enable me to obey your 
commands from Dover, where we were very well treated 
by the officers who, after having searched our trunks very 
strictly, made every allowance which could be reasonably 
expected, and did not insist on confining us to a single suit, 
on seeing we had nothing which had not been worn. . . . 
You must wear your gold, for not even a button will be 
admitted o" ^ The very allowance that the genial earl 
makes for the officials shows how rigorous the ordeal com- 
monly was. 

VI 

In these days of quick and easy transportation few places 
are so remote from civilization as to be long deprived of 
the ordinary necessaries of life, or even of luxuries, if one 
desires to procure them. But a century and a half ago 
remoteness often meant privation, and this fact had much 
to do with shaping the route of the tourist. 

165 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

Perhaps the most characteristic feature of English life 
in the eighteenth century as compared with the sixteenth 
was the general increase in comfort. There had, indeed, 
been great luxury and magnificence in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, but there had been a strange lack of the things that 
in our day appear indispensable to one's well-being. In 
these particulars the seventeenth and eighteenth centiuies 
wrought a great change. Englishmen in the eighteenth 
century ate better and lived more cleanly than their ances- 
tors and were accustomed to a higher standard of comfort 
than was common abroad. English wealth, as we have 
seen, was more generally diffused than on the Continent, 
for England was distinguished above France, Italy, and 
Germany by the existence of a rich and independent 
middle class. 

This increase of comfort in England, to say nothing of 
the fact that English travelers were not noted for their 
meekness and long-suffering, did not make them the 
readier to put up with privation and annoyance on their 
pleasure trips. But the English tourists of the eighteenth 
century do not appear to us to set their demands unduly 
high. They never dreamed of some of the luxuries that to 
wealthy modem travelers have become necessities, and one 
cannot go through the long list of trials that they endured 
on the Continental tour without being surprised that com- 
plaints were not more numerous and more bitter. The 
ordinary mishaps of the road were not few. Not seldom 
the coach overturned, the straps or, more generally, the 
ropes of the harness broke, or the carriage went to pieces 
like the "one hoss shay." The English tourist's ideal of 
comfort was rudely disturbed as soon as he crossed the 
Channel. The beds were not to his liking; there was a sad 
lack of real cleanliness, even though plates and glasses 
might be brightly polished. He could not get his thick 
mutton chop, his cut of roast beef, or his tankard of Eng- 
lish ale. He snuffed suspiciously at the strange and highly 
seasoned dishes, so different from the unadorned products of 
English cookery — the fruit tarts, the mutton pies, the plain 

i66 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES ^ 

boiled vegetables. Nor did he always adjust himself easily 
to simple living unlike his own — the macaroni, the strong 
cheeses, the thin garlic soups. And before the nameless 
messes offered at the roadside inn, even a strong stomach 
recoiled. 

In the matter of housing the English tourist faced an- 
other serious problem. The Dowager Countess of Carlisle, 
in writing to Selwyn from Montpellier about 1780, explains 
that she has succeeded in securing a house for Lord Warwick 
for his summer residence, and adds that the task "is always 
a difficult one where the EngHsh are concerned, for they are 
used, and like to be comfortable, and must therefore pay 
for it." ^ But in France and Italy and some other parts of 
Europe even lavish expenditure did not always secure com- 
fort in winter. For that matter, a good part of the Conti- 
nent to this day uses a pitifully small amount of fuel in 
attempting to warm a living apartment during the colder 
months. 

It is, indeed, obvious that there was varied annoyance 
awaiting the traveler everywhere, but it came to a climax 
in Italy, and this, notwithstanding the fact that Italy was 
for many reasons the most attractive part of Europe to the 
tourist. One who has imagined that the experiences on the 
roads commonly traveled in Italy were an unmixed delight 
should read the directions offered to travelers even as late 
as the end of the eighteenth century ,2 or the middle of the 
nineteenth century .^ Lady Morgan enumerates some of 
the trials to be expected in Italy a generation after the 
French Revolution, and adds: "Most EngHsh travellers, 
and indeed all persons of rank, escape a great part of these 
annoyances, by travelling with a courier, who, constantly 
in advance of the carriages, removes all difficulty by force 
of authority or of gold. We, however, purposely avoided 
the retaining this useful domestic; partly from economy, 
and partly from a general desire of coming as closely as 
possible in contact with a population of whom we should 
have such frequent occasion to speak. We encountered, 
accordingly, our full share of the inconveniences of Italian 

167 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

travelling; and we speak as we felt, and as the mass of the 
people must feel, who necessarily travel without couriers." ^ 

VII 

Not the least of annoyances to the modem tourist would 
be the inefficiency of the postal system. So accustomed 
are we to the telegraph, the telephone, and the express 
train that we cannot at once realize the isolation of the 
eighteenth-century tourist as soon as he left his own 
land. By the aid of the government registration bureaus 
he could be tracked from one town to another, but un- 
less unusual effort was made to follow him he was speed- 
ily lost to view. Even if he kept his friends at home 
constantly informed by letter of his whereabouts, there 
was ample time to go to a far distant region before they 
could get word from him. It is true that in some parts 
of Gennany the postal arrangements were safe enough, 
but they were very slow. As for Italy, Walpole says 
in one of his letters, "I am sorry to find that it costs 
about six weeks to say a word at Pisa and have an answer 
in London." * And this dawdling inefficiency was pecul- 
iarly striking in comparison with the achievements of 
the Romans eighteen centuries earlier. "It may be 
doubted whether there existed in the world in the year 
1800 a postal service that could compare in speed and 
efficiency with the express ser\'ice of the time of Cn^sar." ^ 

The postage for letters was very heavy, — the ordi- 
nary charge was a shilling, — but, in Italy at all events, 
one had no assurance that they would escape being opened 
by prying officials or that they would be delivered at all. 
Lady Mary Montagu repeatedly complains that her 
own letters were tampered with in Italian cities,* or lost 
on the way. Writing in 1741 from Ttuin she says: "I take 
this opportunity of writing to you on many subjects in 
a freer manner than I durst do by the post, knowing 
that all letters are opened both here and in other places, 
which occasions them to be lost, besides other incon- 

168 



SOME DANGERS AND ANNOYANCES 

vcnicnccs that may happen." ' In another letter dated 
thirteen years later, she says: "I am quite siek with 
vexation at the interruption of our eorrespondence. I 
have sent six letters since the date of the last which you 
say you have received; and three addressed to my sister, 
lady Mar, none of which, you say, are arrived." ^ 

Many of the annoyances enumerated in the foregoing 
pages are taken almost at random, for there is no lack of 
material to choose from. The delij.^hts of the; grand tour 
must, indeed, as a rule have overbalanced the vexations 
or sensible Englishmen would not have continued for 
generations to travel on the Continent. But the fact 
remains that even under favorable conditions the tourist 
could hardly avoid a succession of petty troubles that 
sorely tried his patience. Of no great moment when 
taken singly, nevertheless, like the persistent buzzing 
of a gnat, they finally wore uj^on the nerves of the least 
captious of travelers. One to whom carping criticism was 
a delight found .sufficient material in a single tour to supply 
him for a lifetime. 



169 



CHAPTER IX 

THE COST OF TRAVEL 
I 

Of necessity, some of the expenses of travel have been 
occasionally brought to our attention in dealing with 
other matters. A few words may here be added in more 
connected form. This book is, of course, in no sense 
a treatise on economics, and cannot venture to invade 
a field that in a peculiar sense requires the knowledge 
of a specialist. But some indication of the cost of travel 
is desirable, even though we may well decline the task 
of making a detailed estimate of the expense of an eight- 
eenth-century tour as compared with one in our day. 
What an old-fashioned grand tour would cost was, on 
the face of things, far less than it would now be if one were 
to travel in the eighteenth-century fashion, for the price 
of nearly everytliing, when measured in pounds, shil- 
lings, and pence is, in a mere numerical statement, far 
greater now than it was a century and a half ago. Meas- 
ured in general commodities, the difference is less marked, 
but the comparison is complicated by the fact that ma- 
chinery and rapid transportation have cheapened a host 
of products once wrought by hand and laboriously dis- 
tributed by slow boats and carts. Even if the apparent 
cost were the same, we should still have to determine 
the relative purchasing power of the money expended. 

In our day the toiuist can dispense with carrying 
a host of things once necessary to his comfort on the 
journey. But, on the other hand, the modem tourist 
counts as ordinary necessaries of life many things that 
were never dreamed of a century and a half ago. The 
tourist of our time passes in a luxurious train from Paris 

170 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

to Lyons and Marseilles and Rome at an expense of a 
few francs and in the course of a few hours. Comfort- 
ably seated in his motor-car he can now in a single sum- 
mer cover far more territory than the earlier tourist could 
in his entire three years abroad. 

II 

It is not many years a^o that travelers in Europe used 
to carry about their waists a purse in the form of a belt, 
filled with gold coin. Even yet a few pieces may often 
prove useful in an emergency, for gold is a quick solvent 
of many international differences. But to-day few tourists 
load themselves down with precious metal. Under pres- 
ent conditions, to procure any reasonable amount of 
money in return for paper recognized as good is .simplic- 
ity itself. A letter of credit, payable at any one of a 
long list of banks — and few towns are so small as to 
have no bank; travelers' checks, accepted not only at 
banks, but at hotels and by tradesmen; and a multitude 
of reputable offices of exchange ready for a trifling charge 
to return the just value of one's gold or silver in the money 
of any country in Europe — these and other facilities 
have removed one of the most serious obstacles that the 
earlier tourist had to face. 

The somewhat primitive conditions which prevailed 
in the sixteenth century were, it is true, largely amelior- 
ated before the beginning of the eighteenth. The eight- 
eenth century carried on an extensive commerce and had 
a tolerably complete system of banking and exchange 
that had been slowly developing for generations. Far 
earlier, indeed, had been the establishment of many of the 
famous banks of Europe. The Bank of Venice, made 
necessary by a great international commerce, dated 
from the twelfth century; the banks of Florence were 
already flourishing in the fourteenth century; and before 
the beginning of the eighteenth century the banks of 
Barcelona, Genoa, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hamburg, 

171 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

Nuremberg, and the great Bank of England were on a firm 
foundation. The Bank of Vienna was founded in 1703, 
the Bank of Breslau in 1765. In France the disastrous 
failure of Law's Bank in 1720 delayed the founding of 
banks maintained by the government, so that it was not 
until 1776, in the reign of Louis XVI, that the Caisse 
d'Escompte was established. On the other hand, France 
had mmierous private banks, a list of which for the year 
1785 is given in Thierry's AlmanacJi du Voyageur.^ 

With a secure banking system in every country that 
the tourist visited, he could put aside his fears that he 
might be unable to procure funds, provided, of course, 
that he could establish his identity and his claim. He 
might, indeed, as already suggested, largely dispense with 
banks by carrjdng gold on his person and exchanging it 
when necessary. But the imprudence and uselcssness 
of keeping large sums of ready money where they might 
be the prey of a chance robber were sufficiently evident 
to most travelers, who provided themselves with letters 
of credit or bills of exchange,^ the latter being money- 
orders addressed to a particular person, who was directed 
to pay a certain sum to the individual designated. Al- 
though the convenience and safety of letters of credit were 
recognized before the eighteenth century, the convenience 
was somewhat diminished by the fact that the credits 
were to be honored at the particular bank named in the 
letter. Evelyn, for example, in 1645, had a letter of credit 
payable at Venice.^ Circular letters of credit payable 
at any one of a long list of banks appear to have first 
come into use in the nineteenth century. 

An eighteenth-centiu*y traveler commonly had his 
funds credited to him at some bank in a city that he ex- 
pected to visit and there drew at his convenience. When 
Sterne was abroad, "All moneys received were to be 
sent up to London by Sterne's agents, to Selwin, banker 
and correspondent of Panchaud and Foley, in Rue St. 
Sauveur, Paris. In turn the banking firm at Paris was 
to remit to Messrs. Brousse et Fils of Toulouse."* 

172 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

But the methods of eighteenth-century bankers were 
cumbrous and slow, particularly if the tourist applying for 
money happened to be a stranger. How exasperating 
the procedure was, even as late as 1829, we may judge 
from the delays involved in cashing a ■ draft in Paris. 
"My draft is presented, but it must be stamped; and I 
am directed to the public office, about half a mile off. 
Arrived, I wait my turn to be served, and, after paying a 
duty to the government for the registry, return to the 
banker, who receives my bill, and will account with me 
next week." * 

It is not altogether surprising that the bankers of the 
eighteenth century should have insisted upon convincing 
proofs of identity. A banker at Marseilles or Florence 
or Vienna could not hope to communicate with London 
and receive an answer under several weeks. No such 
delay now meets the tourist, if he is obviously not an im- 
postor, but even yet the loss of time involved in drawing 
money at a French provincial bank is often very wearing 
on the nerves. 

Ill 

When the tourist had succeeded in turning his bill 
of exchange or letter of credit into ready money, he was 
by no means at the end of his troubles, for the variety of 
money current on the Continent was an endless annoyance. 
We cannot do more than touch lightly upon the compli- 
cated systems of currency in the countries that we are 
chiefly considering, for our main purpose is not to know 
the precise value in modem currency of this or that coin, 
or to make a critical survey of prices, but to consider how 
the variety of monetary systems affected the tourist. 

In the time of the Roman Empire one could go from the 
island of Britain to the Euphrates and everywhere present 
without hesitation money bearing the imperial stamp. 
Far different was it in the Middle Ages, when a multitude 
of independent kingdoms and principalities and free cities 
established themselves and left as a legacy to after gen-. 

173 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

erations a bewildering variety of monetary systems based 
on different principles. Such, too, was the state of things 
in the eighteenth century. As soon as the tourist passed 
outside of France into Germany or into Italy, he was 
compelled to exchange his money, or a portion of it, for 
use in the district where he was, and in emergencies he 
was unmercifully fleeced by unscrupulous men who took 
advantage of his necessity and his ignorance. James 
Edward Smith cites an experience of his at Naples : " Want- 
ing to change a sequin, the value of which in the silver *of 
the place we well knew, these thieves offered us to the 
amount of three or four shillings less than the true sum. 
We applied to some of the most decent of the neigh- 
borhood, one after another, who all concurred in the 
same account." ^ Finally, an appeal to a soldier on duty 
brought the true change. 

Typical of what might be expected anywhere was Mis- 
son's experience: "We meet so often with different sorts 
of money in Germany, that 'tis impossible to avoid los- 
ing by them. The best way is to make sufficient provision 
in Holland of gold ducats and silver money of the em- 
peror's coin, which are current everywhere without any 
abatement; but something must be allowed for the ex- 
change of those pieces." ^ 

Nugent forewarns the tourist in Germany: "In a 
country divided into so many petty sovereignties there 
must be a great variety of money. Almost every free 
town coins small pieces of its own, which are current over 
the whole empire." ^ And on the quality of this sort 
of currency he adds interesting comments. "The German 
coin in general is neither true sterling nor true weight, 
being dipt, it is thought, more than any coin in Europe. 
The pieces that ought to be round are all shapes. The 
corruptors, particularly the Jews, do not trouble them- 
selves to file it, but snip large bits off of the sides: This, 
with the variety of money that is current here, is no small 
disadvantage to trade, and sinks the value of estates very 
sensibly. As a knowledge, therefore, of the coins is 

174 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

extremely necessary for a traveller, we shall give here a 
short account of the several species that are current." ^ 
The "short account" fills seven pages. ^ 

Similar complication was presented by the money of 
Italy. "Every little state and principality in Italy," 
says Nugent, "coins its own money, which a traveller 
ought to have some knowledge of before he goes to that 
country, otherwise he is exposed to a great deal of trouble 
and perplexity, and liable moreover to be imposed upon. 
We shall therefore give some account of the several coins 
of the principal states and cities of Italy." The enumer- 
ation fills five pages. ^ "In Lombardy especially, which 
is divided into so many principalities, in each state the 
money differs; so that strangers not acquainted with this 
circumstance are liable to be considerable loosers. The 
money therefore that a person ought to carry about 
him in Lombardy is, in gold, pistoles ^ and half pistoles 
of Italy; in silver, Genovins, Milanese ducats, and the 
like; and as soon as you come to the confines, you should 
change and leave behind you the money of the country 
you have gone thro', and take the same sum in the coin 
of the country you are going to enter." ^ 

If the traveler's tour included Venice, he might count 
upon some hours of study before he could pretend to un- 
derstand the system of currency. Even where he was not 
cheated outright into receiving false money, he was in 
constant danger of mistaking the value of unfamiliar 
coins and of getting insufficient change. Consider the 
state of the average tourist's mind on reading the follow- 
ing lucid explanation: "At Venice, and in most parts 
of that republic's dominions, they keep their accounts in 
Lires, Soldi, and Pichioli, reckoning 12 Pichioli to i Soldo, 
and 20 Soldi to i Lira. But the bank reckons by Ducats 
and Grosses, reckoning 24 Grosses to the Ducat. The 
current monies are, I. The Pistole of Venice, Florence, 
Spain, and Louis d'ors worth 29 Lires. II. Another sort 
of Pistoli, valued sometimes at more than 30 Lires. III. 
The Pistole of Italy, Genoa, Turin, Milan, Parma, Mantua, 

175 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

Modena, and Geneva, worth 28 Lires. IV. The Sequin, 
worth 17 Lires. V. The Ducat of gold or Hungarian 
Ducat, worth 16 Lires. VL The Ducatoon, worth 
8 Lires 3^. VIL The silver Crown, worth 9 Lires 13 
Soldi. VIII. The Silver Ducat, worth 6 Lires 4 Soldi. 
IX. The Crusade of Genoa, called Genoins, worth n 
Lires 10 Soldi, and sometimes 11 Lires 15 Soldi. X. The 
Philip of Milan, worth 8 Lires 10 Soldi. XI. The Tcs- 
toon. worth 2 Lires 14 Soldi. XII. The Julio or 3 d. 
XIII. The Lira, worth 20 Soldi. XIV. The SolSo, 
worth 12 Pichioli. XV. The Gross, worth 32 PichioH." » 
And this was a mere beginning. In Tuscany one met 
the sequin, the scudo, the li\Te, and the paul. The Papal 
States had a separate system, and so had the Kingdom 
of Naples, and other parts of the country ^ — Bergamo, 
Bologna, Genoa, Messina, Palermo, Milan, Turin. Nugent 
calls attention to the fact, that, for the sake of aiding 
the tourist, he has specified on the margin of his book 
"where one prince's or state's territory begins and where 
another ends"; and he suggests that "gentlemen will 
not take more money into a neighboring state than is 
necessary to defray the expenses of their journey to it, 
since it will be useless to them." ^ But, ob\'iously, it was 
no easy matter for tourists to estimate precisely the sum 
required to carry them without embarrassment over 
the borders of one petty state into another equally petty, 
but having its own system of currency. Even in the 
United Provinces the tourist had to be cautious. He 
was ad\'ised not to take too many "schillings" with him, 
since the metal was base and "not worth a third part 
of the value" it went at, and, naturally, the value differed 
in one province and another.* He should require bank 
notes rather than current money, since no coin was taken 
except "at the intrinsic worth." ^ Similar conditions 
met one in other countries of Europe, but, as a rule, Spain, 
Hungary, Russia, and the Scandinavian Peninsula were 
not included in the Continental tour. 

176 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 



IV 

There is abundant evidence that to English travelers 
the expense of living abroad appeared on the whole low as 
compared with the cost in England. This we shall have 
occasion more than once to verify. Beyond an irreducible 
minimum one's personal expenses depended, of course, upon 
the individual. These may engage our attention a little 
later. But there were outlays that were inevitable — for 
transportation, for inns, for servants, for beggars. We 
must note, however, that prices were constantly chang- 
ing,' and that any figures here given merely indicate in 
some measure what might be ordinarily expected. One 
inevitable expense was the passage money to and from the 
Continent. The price from Brighton to Dieppe was a 
guinea for each passenger, and the packet boat sailed twice 
a week.2 Mariana Starke, near the end of the eighteenth 
century, returned from the Continent to Yarmouth by 
way of Cuxhaven. Each passenger was obliged to procure 
from the British agent a permission "to embark on board 
the packet." "This permission," says she, "costs for each 
gentleman and lady twelve shillings, sixpence"; "for each 
servant, six shillings, sixpence." The ordinary passage 
money was three guineas. Servants paid half price.^ Be- 
sides all this, says she, "Each Gentleman or Lady pays one 
guinea for provisions to the Captain, who finds everything, 
wine excepted; and each Servant pays half-price. We 
gave as a present to the Master of the Packet, a couple of 
guineas; to the Stewards half a guinea, and to the Ship's 
Company one guinea." * 

The shortest, cheapest, and most popular route was 
from Dover to Calais. "Travellers setting out from Dover 
agree for their passage in the packet-boat to Calais, which 
is half a guinea for a gentleman, and five shillings for each 
servant or attendant; the mate and cabin-boy, who wait 
upon you on board, expect one shilHng each as their per- 
quisite. If you are several in company, and you would 

177 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

hire a packet or vessel to yourselves, the price is five guin- 
eas. Before you embark, you carry your baggage to the 
custom house, where it is searched, for which you pay six- 
pence, and six-pence more, called head-money. The dis- 
tance from Dover to Calais is twenty-one miles." ^ 

Of the expense of posting and coaching we have abundant 
data, though we can aflord space for only a few illus- 
trations. 

For going by post from Calais to Paris the cost for one 
person with two horses and a driver was £7 gs. ^l^d* or 
171 livres, of which the hire of the chaise came to seventy- 
two livres. For two persons with three horses the price 
rose to £9 55. S^d., or 212 livres, 5 sols. If one had an 
EngHsh chaise the charge was £io 165. i}^d. 

One unpleasant feature of posting in France was that 
for some of the posts, styled royal, though in nothing supe- 
rior to the ordinary posts, a double charge was exacted. 
Moreover, the traveler was expected to make no sudden 
changes in his plans. If by post he had set out, by post he 
must continue. Sterne's post-chaise had broken down near 
Lyons, but he had to pay for two posts beyond Lyons, be- 
cause he had started by post ! ^ Smollett made his famous 
journey through France to Italy in 1763, and carefully 
noted his expenses. Says he: "My journey from Paris to 
Lyons, including the hire of the coach, and all expenses on 
the road, has cost me, within a few shillings, forty loui* 
dores." ' Two years later, having had his coach refitted 
and having seciu*ed fresh horses and another postilion, he 
paid at the rate of a louis d'or a day.* 

For going from Calais to Nice in a coach with four per- 
sons, or in two post-chaises with a servant on horseback, 
Smollett reckons about one hundred and twenty pounds as 
a liberal estimate for covering all expenses. James Edward 
Smith, going from Avignon to Italy, hired a carriage "at 
the rate of twelve livres a day, for as long as it might be 
wanted to carry us as far as Nice." ^ "Either at Calais 
or at Paris, you will always find a travelling coach or ber- 
line, which you may buy for thirty or forty guineas, and 

178 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

this will serve very well to reconvey you to your own 
country." ^ 

With the experiences recorded above it is interesting to 
compare those of a generation or two later. When Leigh 
Hunt brought his family back from Italy he tells us: "On 
our return from Italy to England, we travelled not by 
post, but by vettura, that is to say, by easy stages of thirty 
or^ forty miles a day, in a travelling carriage; the box of 
which is turned into a chaise, with a calash over it. It is 
drawn by three horses, occasionally assisted by mules. 
We paid about eighty-two guineas EngHsh, for which some 
ten of us (counting as six, because of the children) were to 
be taken to Calais; to have a breakfast and dinner every 
day on the road; to be provided with five beds at night, 
each containing two persons; and to rest four days during 
the joiuTiey, without further expense, in whatever places 
and portions of time we saw fit." ^ 

Those who preferred the cheap stage-coach or the dili- 
gence, with its early hours, could travel all over the coun- 
try, though with less independence. Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu went from Paris to Lyons by diligence for "three 
hundred Hvres," "all things paid." ^ For mere transporta- 
tion one paid much less. "The stage-coach from Lyons to 
Paris sets out from the Rue de Flandre, every other day, 
at four in the morning. You pay seventy-five livres for 
your place, and five sols per pounds for your baggage, 
except twenty-five pounds which you have free." ^ 

From Rouen to Dieppe the stage-coach went through in 
one day for six livres a person.^ Three-quarters of a century 
later the price had somewhat advanced, but it still im- 
pressed Hazlitt as very low. "Travelling is much cheaper 
in France than England. The distance from Dieppe to 
Rouen is thirty-six miles, and we only paid eight francs, 
that is, six shillings and eight pence apiece, with two francs 
more to the guide and postilion, which is not four pence a 
mile, including all expenses." ^ 

For short trips the cheap public conveyance was a de- 
cided convenience, and the time of starting was not always 

179 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

unreasonably early. "From Paris you may go to Ver- 
sailles," says Nugent, "for five and twenty sols with the 
coche, which sets out twice a day from the Rue Saint 
Nicaise. You may likewise go with a carosse or stage-coach 
that holds but four, for a French cro\ra each; or with, a 
postchaise. Another way is by water for five sols as far as 
Seve, which is half way, either with the boats of Seve or 
S. Cloud. They set out at eight in the morning from Pont 
Royal." » 

We may now turn to Italy. Owing in part to the 
wretched conditions of government in Italy, posting was 
not so well managed as in France. De Brosses found it 
"excessively dear." ^ He complains bitterly of the extor- 
tion of the drivers and the owners of carriages in the north 
of Italy, and brands them as the worst race that ever 
crawled on the face of the earth.* His compatriot, De La 
Lande, gives particidars: "In the State of Venice the 
posts are very dear; the two horses of a chaise cost more 
than eight French livres a post, except for the Venetian 
nobles, who pay a third less, since they have all sorts of 
pri\dleges in the State. If one forgets to take a posting 
ticket before the departure, one pays much more besides." * 

In the Roman State, "Every draught-horse is charged 
at four pauls a post, unless it be a post-royal, when the 
price is six pauls — the only post-royal in the Roman State 
is out of Rome. Every pair of horses must be driven by a 
Postillion, whose claim is two pauls a post, but who will 
not be content without four — every saddle-horse is 
charged at three pauls a post, unless it be a post-royal, 
when the price is five — every extra draught-horse is 
charged at three pauls a post; and to the driver, it is cus- 
tomary to give two pauls, though he has no regular claim." ' 

On the other hand, many carriages were to be had in all 
the small cities of Italy, and at a lower price than in France. 
Commonly they were let by private owners.^ When Smol- 
lett went to Rome by way of Siena, he hired a coach for 
seven weeks for "less than three and a half guineas.'' 
At Rome itself, "For ten or twelve pistoles a month a gen- 

i8o 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

tleman may have a handsome coach and a pair of horses, 
except at Lent or about Easter, when there is a great con- 
course of strangers at Rome, and then they will ask four- 
teen pistoles a month for a coach and a pair of horses." ^ 

How the cost of carriage hire worked out in actual prac- 
tice may be gathered from a few trips actually taken. It 
will be noted that the vetturino system was commonly the 
most economical, and, assuming reasonable honesty on the 
part of the conductor, by far the most satisfactory. As 
a specimen we may note the journey of Mariana Starke 
from Nice to Turin in May of 1792. For the carriage there 
were six horses and for the courier a saddle horse, and the 
cost was twenty-eight louis-d'ors. "Bearing our own ex- 
penses at inns . . . amounted to a couple of crowns a day 
for dinner and three for supper and beds; we were four 
in number, besides our courier, who found himself." ^ 
The same writer records: "We paid from Rome to Flor- 
ence, in May, 1793, forty Roman Sequins, buona ntano in- 
clusive, for four mules to our English coach and three to 
our servants' coach, which was found by the Voiturin. 
We were four persons besides three servants — had one meal 
a day — paid the waiters at inns — and gave our drivers 
one Sequin each for good behaviour." ^ 

It is instructive to see how eighteenth-century condi- 
tions still prevailed in the early nineteenth century. Haz- 
litt says that at Turin "We were fortunate enough to find a 
voiture going from Geneva to Florence with an English 
lady and her niece. I bargained for the two remaining 
places for ten guineas. . . . We were to be eight days on 
the road." * From Florence he went to Rome by way of 
Siena. "We did not meet," says he, "ten carriages on our 
journey, a distance of a hundred and ninety-three miles, 
and which it took us six days to accomplish. I may add that 
we paid only seven louis for our two places in the voiture 
(which, besides, we had entirely to ourselves) our expenses 
on the road included. This is cheap enough." ^ 

Many travelers in Italy took the route along the Adri- 
atic, particularly on the return from Rome, and went by 

181 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

wa}' of Loretto to Bologna. For this journey James Ed- 
ward Smith and his party paid his vetturino "eighteen se- 
quins,^ all expenses included." ' 

The other chief trip in Italy was that from Rome to 
Naples and return. For the journey to Naples Smith and 
his party paid "a little more than three guineas, all ex- 
penses included, except la bttona mano." ' For a distance of 
one hundred and forty-one miles this seems very reasonable. 

The return trip cost nearly a guinea and a half more, but 
included a stop of two days at Caserta and a day at Monte 
Cassino. Smith's concluding remark is worth noting. "In 
this jomiiey we proxdded our own accommodations at the 
inns, by way of experiment ; but were not so well satisfied 
as when the whole was left to oiu: voiturin." •• 

As compared with France, or even Italy, Germany was 
ill-provided \\'ith posting facilities for those who wished to 
travel in comfort. A tourist did wisely to provide his own 
carriage and to trust as little as possible to the springless 
public conveyances or the lumbering vehicles that he might 
chance to find for his private use. As a whole, the country 
was poor, and the cost of transportation was in a measure 
adjusted to the average income. For the ordinary post- 
wagon one paid less than twopence per English mile, "be- 
sides two grosses at each stage to the postilion." •• A 
traveler late in the eighteenth century observes: "Trav- 
elling is cheaper in Germany than in France; for though 
you pay half a rix dollar, or about one shilling and nine 
pence, per horse, for every stage, the stages are as long 
again as those in France. In Franconia, Suabia, and most 
places near the Rhine, it is a florin, or about 2S. and 4d. per 
horse; the postillion will expect thirty cruitzers." * 

Far better were conditions of travel in Holland. So 
diminutive was the country that no journey could be long, 
nor could the cost of mere transportation amount to any 
great sum even with charges far beyond those actually 
demanded. Already in Misson's time "the rates of places 
in the stage-coaches and boats were fixed," so that there 
was "no occasion for contending about the price." The 

182 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

rates varied "according to the difference of places and dis- 
tances." ^ Notwithstanding some travel that seems to us 
to cost very little, Cogan in 1794 declares that travel in 
Holland is "as expensive as in England, or even more so";^ 
and this we may well believe.^ As an interesting detail he 
notes: "From Utrecht to Nimeguen is the distance of 
fourteen hours. There are no turnpikes upon this road; 
but each traveller is obliged to pay passagie geld (passage 
money) from three-pence, six-pence, to twelve-pence, ac- 
cording to the distance of the stage; so that the tax is 
confined to persons." * 

If one preferred to travel in Holland by water,^ the rates 
were very reasonable. And this was equally true in the 
Austrian Netherlands. The prices instanced by Essex in 
1773 were typical. The barge from Dunkerque to Nieuport, 
Bruges, had two classes, first class costing fifteen pence.^ 
More sumptuous was the barge that carried the traveler 
from Bruges to Ghent, a distance of thirty miles, for two 
shillings and sixpence, including dinner. This boat was 
fifty-two feet long, and had cabins, windows with sliding 
sashes, and an awning "over the states room." ' 

V 

More difficult than in dealing with the expense of trans- 
portation is it to generalize on the expense of hotels or 
lodgings or food. But we may note how the charges ap- 
peared to tourists of various types. 

All in all, one could live very well at small expense on the 
Continent, if one exercised reasonable prudence. "It is a 
generally conceived notion in England that it is necessary 
to have a considerable fortune to make the tour of France : 
so it is, I confess, if a man is determined to be a dupe 
to Frenchmen, and enter into all the follies, vices, and 
fopperies, of that vain superficial people; but I can with 
veracity declare, that during eighteen months I was 
abroad, it did not cost me 150/. sterling." ^ 

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu drew upon a wide ex- 

183 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

perience, and in one of her letters she declares: "Nothing: 
is cheaper than living in an inn in a country town in 
France; they being obliged to ask no more than 25 sous 
for dinner, and 30 for supper and lodging, of those that eat 
at the public table." ^ Mrs. Steme said that she and her 
daughter "could save as much money in a year in France 
as would keep them in clothes for seven in England." - 

Of Geneva Lady Mary does, indeed, say that, "Every 
thing is as dear as at London"; ' but a little later she gives 
facts that show what one might do on a moderate income : 
"The Prince of Hesse, who is now married to the Princess of 
England, lived'some years at Geneva on 500/. per annum. 
Lord Hervey sent his son at sixteen thither, and to travel 
afterwards, on no larger pension than 200/.; and though 
without a govemour, he had reason enough, not only to 
live within the compass of it, but carried home little presents 
to his father and mother, which he showed me at Turin." * 

In the second half of the century Lady Knight spent 
much time on the Continent and lived as became her rank, 
though her resources were by no means unlimited. In one 
of her engaging letters, written from Toulouse in 1776, she 
describes one of her dinners: "I gave a dinner . . . two 
days since to an Irish lady and a French gentleman ; we had 
a soup and a dish of the stewed beef, a very fine large eel, 
mutton chops, a brace of the red partridge, an omelet with 
peaches in it, grapes, peaches, pears and savoy biscuits; 
a bottle of Bordeaux — sixteen pence — a bottle of our 
own wine, value three half -penny s. The whole expense 
amounted to ten shillings, wine included and a very fine 
cauliflower." ^ 

It would be easy to show in detail that in other parts of 
France and in other countries one could purchase a great 
deal for very little; but some prices are unexpectedly high. 
Smollett says: "We have as good tea at Boulogne for nine 
livres a pound, as that which sells at fourteen shillings at 
London." * In our time neither price would appear cheap. 

About 1785 the common charge in France for dinner was 
forty sous (twenty pence) and forty-five for supper and 

184 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

lodging. One might also expect clean linen and silver 
forks. ^ In Smollett's day the usual price was thirty sous 
"for dinner and forty for supper, including lodging." 2 In 
1773, James Essex was at Dunkerque and at the inn shared 
a supper provided for four people at fifteen pence a head.' 
"It consisted of two fowls boild, a Duck roasted, a very 
fine codling, a dish of artichoks and a fine sallad, these were 
replaced by a dish of Tarts, a plate of Apricots, 2 plates of 
maccaroons with other confectionarys." * 

Another tourist in 1773 records his expenses at Paris: 
"We drove to the H6tel de I'lmp^ratrice in the Rue 
Jacob, where we have an elegant dining room, with two 
bed chambers on the first floor, and a bed chamber in the 
entre-sol, with an apartment for the servant, for three 
guineas a week. I confess the lodgings are dear, but the 
situation is good, and the furniture magnificent." For 
coach hire he paid half a guinea a day and a shilling to 
the coachman. "We have likewise," says he, "a valet 
de place, who goes behind the coach, runs in errands, and 
cheats us when he can. We generally dine at a Table 
d'H6te where we find genteel people and good dinners, 
the price is different at different houses; but for forty 
sous a head, which is twenty-pence English, we dine most 
sumptuously on two courses of seven and five, with a 
dessert and a pint of Burgundy; when two are seated, 
the table is full. We always sup at home. We buy our 
wine of the merchant, and our supper is sent from the 
neighbouring traiteurs." ^ 

Smollett, while on the Continent, found that expenses 
depended largely upon the tourist himself. If he was 
bent on economy, he could easily curtail his daily outlay 
and yet live comfortably. "A single person, who travels 
in this country, may live at a reasonable rate in these 
towns, by eating at the public ordinaries; but I would 
advise all families that come hither to make any stay, to 
take furnished lodgings as soon as they can: for the ex- 
pence of living at an hotel is enormous. I was obliged 
at Marseilles to pay four livres a head for every meal, 

185 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

and half that price for my sen'-ant, and was charged six 
livres a day besides for the apartment; so that our daily 
expence, including breakfast and a valet de place, 
amounted to two loui' dores." ' 

VI 

But although normal prices on the Continent were 
often extremely low, the hiuried tourist seldom reaj^ed 
the fidl advantage of them, and this for many reasons. 
Tourists were ad\'iscd, as a matter of principle, not to 
be too careful of their expenditures. "To travel agi-ee- 
ably," says ^lisson, "one must spend. 'Tis the way to 
be respected of every body, to gain admittance every- 
where, and to make great advantages of travelling in 
all respects. Since 'tis but once in j'our lives that you 
undertake such a thing, 'tis not worth while to be care- 
ful in sa\'ing a thousand crowns, more or less. Nothing 
is more melancholy than to see one's self forced, upon the 
account of thriftiness, to do things which expose one to 
the contempt of the rest of the travellers." ^ 

This advice might have been spared. The attitude 
of the average well-to-do English tourist towards ex- 
pense was very lofty and inditlorcnt. Accustomed to 
a large establishment at home and to a revenue that to 
foreigners appeared princely, he scorned small economies 
and dealt out considerable sums NN^thout realizing that he 
was doing anything unusual. Moreover, on his travels 
he commonly gave liimself freer rein than at home and 
without complaint paid outrageous bills that he might 
normally have scrutinized more closely. Provided with 
money far beyond his needs, the young English aristo- 
crat took delight in la\ash spending and lived at The 
Hague, at Paris, at Rome, at Vienna, in magnificent 
style. He had his coach, his nmning footmen, his valet, 
and other servants in livery, he had his suits of velvet 
and lace and silk, and he gave costly dinners to repay 
some of the hospitality he had enjoyed. 

i86 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

There were, of course, English tourists who kept the 
purse-strings tightly drawn, either because of a saving 
disposition or because otherwise they could not travel 
at all. Men like Smollett, who could ill afford any un- 
usual outlay, were goaded to fury at meeting the normal 
charges exacted from travelers of rank. But as a rule, 
taking pride in the national reputation for wealth, the 
tourist scorned to show that even charges ridiculously 
high appeared to him exorbitant. 

There had been a vast increase in English wealth in 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,* and extrava- 
gance was an inherited trait. Fynes Moryson comments 
upon the prodigality of the English of his time who would 
not take the trouble to examine their reckonings.' Even 
Walpole speaks of "the incredible profusion of our young 
men of fashion. I know a younger brother," says he, 
"who literally gives a flower- woman half a guinea every 
morning for the nosegay in his button-hole." ^ 

In "The Capuchin," Foote cleverly ridicules the Eng- 
lish fondness for spending money in order to make strangers 
stare. Sir Harry Hamper, who is now making a tour 
with a "travelling tuterer," had formerly kept a tea- 
shop in Cornhill. 

Sir Harry Hamper. Come, come! Come along. Doctor! 
Peter, give the postillions thirty souses apiece. 

Peter. ' Tis put down, they are to have but five, in the book. 

Sir H. No matter ; it will let them know we are some- 
body, Peter. 

Peter. What significations that? ten to one, we shall 
never see them again. 

Sir H. Do as you are bid ! (Peter pays the Postillions.) 

Peter. There ! Pox take ' em, see how they grin I ay, ay, 
I dare be sworn you han't seen such a sum this many a day. 

1st Post. Serviteur! bonne voyage, Monsieur my lor! 

Sir H. There, there, Peter! my lord! I have purchased 
a title for ten pence; that is dog cheap, or the devil 's in 't. 

Peter. Nay, in that respect, the folks here make but little 
difference between their dogs and your worship, I think; for 
every mangy cur I have met with, is either prince, or my 
lord, or marquis.^ 

187 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

As for the reputation of the English abroad, the plain- 
spoken Lady Mary Wortley Montagu does not mince 
matters. "I know," says she, "how far people are im- 
posed on that bear the name of English and heretics 
into the bargain; the folly of British boys, and stupidity 
or knavery of governors, have gained us the glorious title 
of Golden Asses all over Italy." * Very illuminating, also, 
are the remarks of Baretti on the extravagance of the 
English during the tour abroad. "I believe it is not 
necessary to say that a disposition to spend money freely 
is one of the chief requisites towards the pleasures of 
such an undertaking. However, there are few English 
travellers who need this advice; and perhaps it would 
not be improper to warn some of the most profuse, of the 
general character this quality has acquired them in Italy, 
where they are often called dupes and fools; and many 
of my countrymen have wished for a law to prevent 
their coming into Italy, unless they come with a certi- 
ficate, importing that they know the true use of money." ^ 

This lordly indifference to expense, together with the 
reputation for boundless wealth, brought the inevitable 
penalty, for prices advanced wherever the English went.^ 
If Englishmen bought pictures they were at the mercy 
of gHb-tongued professional guides who played into 
the hands of the dealers. Not seldom they were even 
ready to pay more than was asked. They offered Can- 
aletto for his mediocre pictures of Venice three times as 
much as his ordinary price.* 

Where they had no other amusement at hand they 
often literally threw their money away . ' ' How frequently , ' ' 
says a close observer, "did I with concern see our young 
nobility and gentry, who, even travelling for their edu- 
cation, spend their money and time, little to their own 
improvement, or the credit of their country, frequently 
collecting mobs in the street, by throwing money from 
the windows; and in their daily actions confirming French- 
men in their unalterable opinions, that the English are 
all immensely rich, and consequently can afford to pay 

i88 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

double what a Frenchman wiU pay for the same article! 
People in trade find the EngUsh custom so vastly bene- 
ficial, that they have their lookers-out on purpose to 
bring them to their shops and taverns, who have a share 
in the impositions arising." ^ "The EngUsh," says Lady 
Knight, "pay double for everything in every country.' 

Even tourists of modest means were commonly charged 
on the same scale as their extravagant countrymen. 
An American writing shortly after the French Revo- 
lution says: "The English are considered by the Romans 
as the introducers of high prices into this country. To 
them it is said to be owing, that the expenses of travel- 
ling have increased to an astonishing degree, smce the 
termination of the late continental wars; and that, not 
so much by the simple occupation, use, and consumption 
of the conveniences and luxuries of the country, as by 
the manner in which they squander their money rather 

than spend it." ' ■, u 

Particularly throughout Italy and France greedy coach- 
men and porters and hotel servants, as well as shop- 
keepers and landlords, regarded the incautious stranger 
as legitimate spoU, and strove to catch their sMre of 
the golden shower." Every unscrupulous dealer had 
two prices - one that he would get if he could, the other 
that he would take if he must. The native, accustomed to 
bargaining and familiar with prices, had small difficulty 
in making his own terms. The average tourist, on the 
other hand, was ill prepared to succeed in such a contest 
Extortion faced travelers as soon as they landed at 
Calais. There they found the Silver Lion, the HOte 
d'Angleterre, or Table Royal, "extravagant houses all! 
and the high prices, though not the comforts, of these 
inns met them in the most unexpected places. 

We are obviously unwarranted in infemng from a 
few instances that every Continental innkeeper^ took 
advantage of his guests, but the concurrent testimony 
of tourists in France and Italy was that to trust to the 
fairness of an unknown landlord was hazardous m the 

189 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

extreme. At Montpellier the manager of a certain house 
"had the conscience to charge an EngHsh sea officer 
that died there 300 livres (twelve gtiineas and a half) 
for only eight days' lodging." ^ 

Smollett had his own unpleasant experience at Mont- 
pellier: "Put up at the Cheval Blanc, counted the best 
auherge in the place, tho' in fact it is a most wretched 
hovel, the habitation of darkness, dirt, and imposition. 
Here I was obliged to pay four livres a meal for every 
person in my family, and two livres at night for every 
bed, though all in the same room. . . . This imposi- 
tion is o^vdng to the concourse of English who come hither, 
and, like simple birds of passage, allow themselves to 
be plucked by the people of the country, who know their 
weak side, and make their attacks accordingly. They 
affect to believe that all the travellers of our country 
are grand seigneurs, immensely rich and incredibly gen- 
erous; and we are silly enough to encourage this opinion, 
by submitting quietly to the most ridiculous extortion, 
as well as by committing acts of the most absurd extrav- 
agance. This folly of the English, together with a con- 
course of people from different quarters, who come hither 
for the re-establishment of their health, has rendered 
Montpellier one of the dearest places in the south of 
France." 2 

Elsewhere he notes: "The same imposition prevails 
all over the south of France, though it is the cheapest 
and most plentiful part of the kingdom. Without all 
doubt, it must be owing to the folly and extravagance of 
English travellers, who have allowed themselves to be 
fleeced without wincing, until this extortion is become 
authorized by custom." ' 

Neglect to ascertain in advance the cost of a room or a 
dinner left the proprietor free to exact as much as he 
thought he could probably get. "To an Englishman it 
seems very strange to go into an inn, and make a bar- 
gain for his bed, his supper, his horses and servants, 
before he eats or sleeps; yet this is common in France, 

190 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

and for a stranger even necessary; for though you will 
meet with no kind of civil reception at the inns upon the 
road in France, as with us, at your entrance, you will 
meet with an exorbitant bill (without this precaution) 
at your departure." * 

Young evidently neglected this precaution at Cher- 
bourg. "I was here fleeced more infamously than at any 
other town in France; the two best inns were full; I was 
obliged to go to the barque, a vile hole, little better than 
a hog-sty; where, for a miserable dirty wretched cham- 
ber, two suppers composed chiefly of a plate of apples 
and some butter and cheese, with some trifle besides too 
bad to eat, and one miserable dinner, they brought me 
in a bill of 31 liv. (il. 7s. id.); they not only charged 
the room 3 liv. a night, but even the very stable for my 
horse, after enormous items for oats, hay, and straw. "^ 
He cautions the tourist: "Let no one go to Cherbourg 
without making a bargain for everything he has, even to 
the straw and stable; pepper, salt, and table-cloth." 

Later he cites another example of the greed of the 
spoiler: "Sleep at Nemours, where we met with an inn- 
keeper, who exceeded, in knavery, all we had met with 
in France or Italy; for supper, we had a soup maigre, 
a partridge and a chicken roasted, a plate of celery, a 
small cauliflower, two batches of poor vin du Pays, and 
a dessert of two biscuits and four apples : here is the bill : — 
Potage, I liv. 10/. — Perdrix, 2 liv. 10/. — Poulet, 2 liv. — 
Celeri, i liv. 4/. — Choufleur, 2 liv. — Pain et dessert, 
2 liv. — Feu & apartement, 6 liv. — Total, 19 liv. 8/. 
Against so impudent an extortion, we remonstrated se- 
verely, but in vain. We then insisted on his signing the 
bill, which, with many evasions, he did, a Vetoile; Foul- 
liarer ^ 

The instances just cited are the more striking to the 
modern tourist, since extortion, though not unknown, 
is by no means the rule in modem France. To this day, 
however, in a good part of Italy, particularly south of 
Florence, the eighteenth-century habit of taking ad- 

191 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

vantage of the unwary guest is only too common. Ger- 
many has enjoyed a far better reputation in this par- 
ticular, though one has always found preliminary in- 
quiry concerning hotel charges useful in Vienna, and 
also in the more frequented parts of Holland. 

Strangely like the eighteenth-century complaints are 
those of Leigh Hunt, whose three years in Italy, from 
1823 to 1826, gave him abundant opportunity for obser- 
vation: "Persons employed to do the least or the great- 
est jobs will alike endeavour to cheat you through thibk 
and thin. Such, at least, was the case when I was in 
Italy. It was a perpetual warfare, in which you were 
obliged to fight in self-defence. If you paid anybody 
what he asked you, it never entered his imagination that 
you did it from anything but folly. You were pronounced 
a minchioHc (a ninny), one of their greatest terms of re- 
proach. On the other hand, if you battled well through 
the bargain, a perversion of the natural feeling of self- 
defence led to a feeling of respect for you. Dispute might 
increase; the man might grin, stare, threaten; might 
pour out torrents of argument and of 'injured innocence,' 
as they always do; but be firm, and he went away equally 
angry and admiring. Did anj'body condescend to take 
them in, the admiration as well as the anger was still 
in proportion, like that of the gallant knights of old when 
they were beaten in single combat." ' 

As for the eighteenth-century tourist in Italy, if he 
condescended to bargain a little he could live very 
cheaply, though seldom so cheaply as a native even with- 
out bargaining. Very significant, as indicating the double 
standard of prices in Italy, is the experience of James 
Edward Smith. Wliile on his way to Genoa, he fell in 
with a Milanese count and put up with him at an inn. 
"When we came to pay our bill in the morning, I was 
surprised to find no demand made, but the whole left 
to the discretion of my companion, who paid in all, for 
himself and for me, much less perhaps than I should 
have paid alone; as was the case all the way to Genoa. 

192 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

Such is the advantaj.^c of travelling under the protection 
of an inhabitant of the country." ' 

A typical Italian city of moderate size is Pavia. Here 
one could live at "an excellent inn" for about "four 
shillings by the day" for "dinner and lodging, which is 
the common rate of the country." ' At Venice the charges 
were naturally much higher. The guest who went to 
the "Scudo di Francia, a celebrated hotel," could have 
" only two miserable little rooms for twenty sequins a 
month, nor . . . obtain them for a shorter period," 
and was asked twelve livres a day for dinner. But, says 
the traveler, our conductor "readily procured at the 
Nuova Speranza a very elegant and convenient set of 
apartments for fifteen sequins, and dinner at six livres 
each, with an excellent valet de place, who served us 
during our stay for six livres a day, which was cheap 
for this season. A Venetian livre is somewhat less than 
a Roman paul." ^ 

Cheap as Itahan hotels were in most towns when one 
paid only the normal price or what the landlord was 
willing to accept after bargaining, they were often ex- 
pensive enough to the traveler who trusted to the fair- 
ness and honesty of his host. Sometimes the inns that 
offered least demanded most. The only safe plan, there- 
fore, as in France, was to come to an agreement in ad- 
vance with the landlord, and even then one might be 
overreached by leaving some loophole unguarded. ■» Smol- 
lett says of an inn on the road between Rome and Flor- 
ence, "To give you an idea of the extortion of those vil- 
lainous publicans, I must tell you that for a dinner and 
supper, which even hunger could not tempt us to eat, 
and a night's lodging in three truckle beds, I paid eighty 
pauls, amounting to forty shillings sterling."^ 

The habit of overreaching was nothing new. The 
sixteenth century Fynes Moryson tells us, "Only the 
Innkeepers are permitted by all Princes (some more, some 
lesse) to cxtorte without measure upon all passengers 
because they pay unsupportable rents to them." ^ 

193 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

Of impositions in Italy ncarl}'^ every eighteenth-century 
traveler speaks in bitter terms. Already in the seventeenth 
century Ray. in his "Travels through the State of Venice," 
complains: "Shop-keepers and tradesmen are false and 
fraudulent enough, and inn-keepers, carriers, water-men 
and porters, as in other places, horribly exacting, if you 
make not an explicit bargain with them beforehand, inso- 
much that in many places the state hath thought it neces- 
sary by public bando and decree, to determine how much 
inn-keepers shall receive of travellers for their dinner and 
for their supper and lodging." ' 

Commenting upon the inns of Turin, Keysler in his time 
complains : "The inns here also stand in great need of better 
regulations, that travellers may be well used and not be so 
intolerably imposed upon. There is not a place in all Italy 
where the entertainment, at the same expence, is so bad as 
at Turin." « 

James Edward Smith stayed at the same inn at Lerici 
that Smollett had denounced years before, and, like Smol- 
lett, he had an unliappy experience: "Lerici," says he, 
"contains an execrable inn. . . . We bargained before- 
hand, as is necessary in Italy, for our supper and lodging; 
but, having had coffee next morning, were surprised to find 
it charged about as much as all the rest put together. On 
complaining, we were told with the utmost effrontery, that 
coffee was not in the original bargain." ' 

But it is worth noting that Smith remarks later: "We 
found the inn-keepers in the north of Italy honest enough 
to be trusted, at least so much as only to ask the price of 
our accommodation on entering, and even if that precaution 
were neglected, we were seldom imposed on." * 

In the South the grasping instinct was strongest. Breval 
went from Messina to Naples by felucca, landing here and 
there along the coast. He found bad accommodations all 
the way, and once narrowly escaped being shot by an irate 
landlord whose bill he disputed.^ The shotgun was not 
generally used in Italy as a proof of the correctness of the 
hotel bill, but complaints of the dishonesty of innkeepers 

194 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

and in general of those who had anything to sell are fre- 
quent in eighteenth-century books of travel. 

Naturally high prices prevailed in those houses that 
catered to foreign guests. But the ordinary charges for 
food and lodging at an eighteenth-century Italian inn ap- 
pear to a modern tourist very moderate indeed. We 
must note, however, that De Drosses * thought the Italian 
inns expensive ; and that De La Lande ^ remarks upon the 
extreme cheapness of food in Tuscany, but adds, "Tout est 
chcr dans les auberges." 

Mariana Starke, basing her generalization upon a seven 
years' residence in Italy, says: "Prices at inns are much 
the same all over Italy, namely, for a large apartment, 
twenty Tuscan pauls per day — for a smaller apartment, 
fifteen pauls, and so on in proportion — for breakfast, one 
livre per head — for dinner, six or eight pauls per head — 
for a cold supper, one livre per head — for every servant, 
three pauls per day. And with respect to huona-mano to 
Attendants at inns, the waiter usually expects about one 
paul per day, though persons who stay but a very short time 
usually give more. The Cook expects a trifling present, and 
the chambermaid one still more trifling. The wages of a 
valet-de-place is four pauls per day throughout Tuscany, 
he finding himself in board, lodging and clothes." ' 

After this general statement we need spare but few lines 
for further detail. "At Rome," says Misson, representing 
the earlier part of the century, "you pay but seven julios ^ 
in the best inns, and if you make a bargain for a consider- 
able time they will content themselves with six." ^ 

In general, throughout the eighteenth century, living at 
Rome was inexpensive. Lady Knight writes in 1778: "I 
have now taken a lodging for a year, at six and thirty pounds 
a year. . . . We are in a palace surrounded by palaces. 
It is neatly furnished, and I have eight rooms entirely clear 
from the other families, who only ascend the same staircase. 
The English pay about as much for two months of apart- 
ments, often not quite so good." ^ Three years later she 
remarks: "We are both fond of Rome, finding it not only 

195 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

cheap, but the most entertaining place in the world, am! 
were we to stay double the time we have done, we should 
still have thinj^s to see that are new."' And she adds, "It 
is true, Rome is at present very de;ir, but when I tell you 
that beef is only three-halfpence a pound, a fine turkey iiot 
quite fifteen-pence, that I can have a coach for six hours (or 
horses to our owm, which I please) for three and six-ponoo. 
you will think how differently I must be in England." ^ 
In 17S2 she says that. "Though Rome is thirty per cent 
dearer than it was, yet it is, I believe, the cheapest city in 
Europe. ' ' ^ And in 1 7 9 1 , living not far from the Capitol, she 
tells a friend: "We have eight rooms, besides a very good 
kitchen and cellar. . . . We are three miles from St. Peter's. 
We pay for these apartments about twelve pounds ten a 
year; in London they would cost us at least two hundred 
pounds per anmmi." ^ 

Mariana Starke likewise found Rome very inexpensive. 
"The price of lodgings, while the Papd Government con- 
tinued, was not exhorbitant — IMargariti usually demanded 
forty paper scitdi per month for his best apartments, with- 
out linen, unless it were during the Holy Week, when the 
price was higher. Conquelini demanded sixty paper scudi 
per month without linen ; but this price was reckoned ex- 
horbitant." ^ "The best traitcurs during the Papal Gov- 
ernment charged only eight pauls a head for dinner, des- 
ert, bread, and wine; and this dinner usually furnished the 
servants of the family with as much as they could cat. 
The price of breakfast at a coffee-hotise was one paul per 
head — the price of dinner per head at a iraitcur's, three 
pauls, bread and wine inclusive." ^ 

LiN^ng at Naples also was extremely cheap,^ though the 
tourist did ^^^sely to be on his guard. ^ At the end of the 
century, "The price commonly demanded [at Naples] for 
the best apartments at hotels, and other lodging-houses 
frequented by the English, is from eighty to one hundred 
and twenty ducats per month, during winter and spring; 
and apartments by the night cannot easily be procured 
under three or four ducats. ... A good dinner at an hotel 

196 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

is usually charged at eight or ten carlini per head; Ser- 
vants' living at three or four carlini per day each — break- 
fast is charged so high that most People find their own." ^ 

In any case, living in Italy was far less expensive than 
in England,^ and so the scale of relative prices has on the 
whole continued to our own time. How cheaply one could 
live at Florence in 1845 we see from the experience of 
Bayard Taylor: "We have taken three large and tolerably 
well furnished rooms in the house of Signor Lazzeri, a 
wealthy goldsmith, in the Via Vacchereccia, for which we 
pay ten scudi per month — a scudo being a trifle more than 
an American dollar. This includes lights, and the attend- 
ance of servants, to whom, however, we are expected to 
give an occasional gratuity. We live at the Cafe and 
Trattorie readily for about twenty-five cents a day, so that 
our expenses will not exceed twelve dollars a month, each. 
For our dinners at the Trattoria del Cacciatore we pay 
about fourteen cents, and are furnished with soup, three 
or four dishes of meat and vegetables, fruit and a bottle of 
wine!" ^ 

In traveling through Tuscany in the forties of the nine- 
teenth century, Bayard Taylor put up at inns frequented 
by the common people. "They treated us here, as else- 
where," says he, "with great kindness and sympathy, and 
we were freed from the outrageous impositions practised 
at the greater hotels."^ At Casina, however, "We de- 
cided to leave it to the host's conscience not to over- 
charge us. Imagine our astonishment, however, when at 
starting a bill was presented to us, in which the smallest 
articles were set down at three or four times their value." ^ 

We may now pass into Germany. The German character 
has its failings, but "steadiness with honesty" has re- 
mained for centuries its distinguishing mark. This ap- 
peared in the dealings with tourists, who rarely complain of 
the charges at German inns and in German shops.^ Until 
near the end of the nineteenth century cheapness continued 
to be a notable feature of the country. Henry Crabb Rob- . 

197 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

inson made a tour of three hundred miles in Germany at a 
cost of two and a half guineas. "And when it is considered 
that we included in our tour one of the most fashionable and 
famous resident towns, and one of the celebrated districts 
of Germany, it must be allowed that travelling is for me a 
cheap pleasure." ^ 

Bayard Taylor tells a similar story, but we must note 
that Taylor had a genius for living on almost nothing. 
"The cheapest coimtry for travelling, as far as my experi- 
ence extended, is Southern Germany, where one can travel 
comfortably on twenty-five cents a day. Italy and the 
south of France come next in order, and are but little more 
expensive; then follow Switzerland and Northern Germany, 
and lastly. Great Britain. The cheapest city, and one of 
the pleasantest in the world, is Florence, where we break- 
fasted on five cents, dined sumptuously on twelve, and 
went to a good opera for ten. A man would have no diffi- 
culty in spending a year there for about $250." ^ 

In the eighteenth century Baron Riesbeck found even 
Vienna inexpensive for those who could make a long stay, 
though the hotels have long been dear for the passing 
stranger. "The expence of living," says he, "is likewise 
less than it is anywhere else; and Vienna is probably the 
only town in which the price of the necessaries of life is not 
equal to the quantity of gold in circulation." ' 

A typical watering-place like Cleves on the lower Rhine 
was counted rather expensive, and the following were the 
prices in the last decade of the eighteenth century: "To 
prevent any imposition, but those sanctioned de part le Rot, 
the late King authorized a set of regulations respecting the 
price of rooms, meals, wines, etc. According to these, you 
may sleep comfortably for five guilders (about nine shil- 
lings) per week; breakfast for six-pence; dine for sixteen; 
sup for twelve; have a bottle of decent Rhenish wine, con- 
taining three pints, for eighteen, and of Moselle for sixteen.'* * 

At Hamburg, one of the wealthiest cities in Germany, 
"the common price for dinner at an inn," says Mariana 
Starke, "is two marks a head." ^ 

198 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

In the Low Countries, as already noted, the mere cost of 
living made a moderate demand upon the tourist's purse. 
James Essex dined one day in 1773 on the barge plying be- 
tween Bruges and Ghent. The dinner served for twelve 
people cost fifteen pence each and was a very elaborate 
meal, with a first course of soup, boiled beef, stewed peas, 
French beans stewed, and herrings pickled on greens. 
The second course included roast mutton, veal, fowls, 
"soals," and stewed veal. Then followed apricots, plums, 
pears, "biskits," "crumplins," filberts, butter and cheese.^ 

When compared with the fashionable inns of London the 
highest priced inns of Holland were inexpensive. One 
could live at the best inns of The Hague, which compared 
favorably with any in Europe, for five or six shillings a day. 
But in London at the King's Arms in Pall Mall or at 
Pontac's in the City * ' it requires good economy to come off 
for fifteen shillings or a guinea a day." ^ And this before 
1750. A generation or more later, in commenting on the 
charges at Dutch inns, the English tourist Pratt remarks: 
"Leaving you, however, . . . undefended amongst the 
Hollanders, you would not so soon be swallowed up as by 
the English." ^ 

Private lodgings at The Hague were about as expensive 
as in London, but not so well furnished or so comfortable in 
winter. "The stranger at The Hague may generally board 
in the house where he lodges, which is no small conveniency 
to such as are not obliged to dress and go abroad every 
day. He pays a shilling for his dinner, or midmal, as they 
call it, and is sure of two or three good dishes." * 

VII 

After a certain point expense is so purely a personal 
matter that generalization becomes difficult, for the outlay 
varies according to the tastes and the fortune of the tour- 
ist. Particularly is this true in estimating the allowance 
for beggars. In the Low Countries and in most* of Ger- 
many beggary was rare, but in Paris, in Lyons, in Tus- 

199 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

cany, in the Papal States, and in the Kingdom of Naples 
wretched shadows of humanity, emaciated, deformed, cov- 
ered with loathsome sores, might be encountered at every 
church door, while able-bodied mendicants infested the 
highways and the city squares, and descended in vociferous 
swarms upon the tourist intent upon some ancient ruin. 
English travelers in particular were regarded as the surest 
resource of the "lame and the lazy." So marked was the 
difference between the gaunt destitution of Ital}'- and the 
sleek comfort of England that every eighteenth-century 
English tourist noted as a matter of course the one social 
condition that most impressed him. 

After the traveler had escaped the ordinary beggars of 
the street he had still to deal with the hotel servants, with 
the postilions, and the luggage porters. With the ordinary 
servants of the inn the well-instructed tourist had little 
trouble. For a day's service he bestowed a few coppers or 
the smallest silver coin upon the head waiter and gave "a 
trifle to the gate porter." But the inexperienced tourist 
dealt out rewards with lavish hand to the troops of 
servants gathered at the inn door when the coach drew 
up for departure. Then came the turn of the luggage 
carriers, who were frequently not connected at all with 
the inn. 

Particularly in France and Italy were these harpies a 
plague. Both on the arrival and the departure of the coach 
these volunteer porters followed and pestered the traveler, 
quarreling over the privilege of carrying his luggage and 
making their charges as high as they dared. Trained from 
infancy in the arts of extortion these greedy cormorants 
were never satisfied, and affected dissatisfaction with the 
most liberal gratuity if they saw any prospect of exacting 
more. 

If the tourist was traveling in his own coach, he might 
expect at every stop to have a blacksmith come prying 
about the carriage and the horses; and unless the fellow 
was thoroughly incompetent he might be trusted to find a 
nut or a bolt missing or a shoe that required resetting. 

200 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

His own work was usually so badly done as to insure a job 
to somebody in another town.^ 

Little better than licensed beggary were the exactions of 
pampered menials in high station. In Milan, says Keys- 
ler, writing of the state of things about 1730, "The present 
governor is a strict economist, and has but few guests. 
He is also difficult of access to foreigners, who are here sub- 
ject to another inconvenience, that, after only paying their 
respects to him, without eating or drinking, a multitude of 
domestics, as the harbinger, gentleman, trumpeter, porter, 
etc., even to the countess's woman, placing themselves in 
the way, crowd about them for money, and a stranger 
cannot get rid of these genteel beggars under several louis 
d'ors." 2 

At Rome, too, one drawback to accepting any social 
courtesies was the tax afterwards levied upon the guests. 
"It is not difficult," says Keysler, "to get acquainted with 
some of the cardinals, and they are not backward in receiv- 
ing visits ; but nothing, however, is saved by it : For the car- 
dinal's servants are sure to make the guests pay dearly for 
his entertainment ; and so mean spirited are these fellows, 
that if the very next day after a visit a person enters their 
master's house again, they surround him soliciting a h{u)ona 
mano, or gratuity. It is the same if one goes to a concert, or 
a party ^t play, or on receiving the most trivial civility at 
any house." ^ 

De La Lande found a similar state of things: "Stran- 
gers complain much in England of the practice of the 
domestics, who, after dinner, arrange themselves at 
the door to receive each a gift from all those who have 
eaten with their master. In Italy there is something of 
the sort, though less burdensome. As soon as a stranger 
has been presented in a house, even without having eaten 
there, one of the servants comes the next morning in 
the name of all the others to pay his compliments, and 
the custom is to give him at least a tester (thirty-two 
sous) or more, according to the rank of the person who 
has been presented. As many visits as you pay, so many 

201 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

testers must you give, without counting what you give 
for seeing the apartments and pictures of the house.* . . . 
On New Year's Day, in the month of August, and when 
one is ready to depart, one receives similar compHments, 
and is obHged to bestow like gifts: but, for all that, it 
costs much less than in England." ^ 

The number of servants that the tourist regularly kept 
in his employ was naturally regarded as a good index of 
his wealth and social importance. Even though he might 
not have taken a servant abroad with him, his first care 
on arriving at Paris or Turin or Rome, if he wished to 
maintain his social position, was to secure one or more 
attendants — at least a valet, and a footman. A man 
of high quality was expected to maintain his rank by 
keeping a troop of lackeys. The Earl of Carlisle, writing 
from Naples in 1768, complains to Selwyn: "These 
cursed feasts will ruin me in servants. I am forced to 
have seven here, and have another on the road. Though 
I hope soon to dismiss some of mine, yet the house can- 
not well be too large, as we shall not have less than thir- 
teen or fourteen servants." ' 

Another necessity for tourists of high social standing 
— at Paris, at Turin, at Rome, at Naples, at Vienna — 
was a carriage. The expense naturally varied with the 
city. In Paris, "where all the genteel English . . . keep 
a carriage," it was rarely more than twelve guineas a 
month. "They will make a demand tjpon you for a 
shilling a day for the coachman; but this is a mere im- 
position upon a stranger, and contrived between the 
master of the coach and your servant, to whom he gives 
a shilling a day." * 

One who actively participated in the social life of the 
upper classes on the Continent found himself almost 
inevitably drawn into expensive pastimes. Gambling, 
great and small, betting of every sort, was the common 
form of entertainment in the upper ranks of society through- 
out Europe in the generation preceding the French Revo- 
lution. In London it was the curse of the nobility. "At 

202 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

Almack's," notes Walpole in 1770, "the young men of 
the age lose five, ten, fifteen thousand pounds of an even- 
ing." ^ When these young men went abroad they found 
card tables at every evening assembly and they con- 
tinued their gaming as a matter of course. Charles James 
Fox dissipated a tolerable fortune at Naples and Spa 
when he toured the Continent as a gay young macaroni. 
The ordinary gambling that served to while away an 
idle social hour in France or Italy laid no heavy burden 
upon young men of prudence, but those who regularly 
participated in the universal sport added month by month 
no small item to their expense account. Those who de- 
clined to share in games of chance found themselves 
as a rule out of harmony with their company. 

The average tourist, as we have elsewhere remarked, 
was not especially keen to enjoy the society of the Con- 
tinent, but his pride would not permit him to be singu- 
lar in his dress and in his lack of conformity to social 
conventions. Very curious are the details in the guide- 
books of the time. Note the following advice, addressed 
to the English in Paris in the year 1770: "For dress- 
ing hair, never give more than six livres per month. La- 
dies give twelve to be drest in the highest mode ; and both 
gentlemen and ladies are drest every day." 

Within comparatively narrow limits one could estimate 
before leaving home the cost of one's wardrobe: "One 
great article of expense at Paris is cloaths. You will 
meet no where with greater cheats than the French tay- 
lors, it is therefore my advice to you to buy everything 
yourself; and, even at the merchant's, be very cautious 
not to give so much as they ask you. For making a plain 
smt of cloaths, you give eighteen shillings, and for the 
richest laced cloaths thirty shillings. The suits most 
generally used are velvet, silk, and plain cloth. A black 
velvet suit, with very rich gold waistcoat, will cost you 
sixteen guineas, making and all. A silk suit, nine guineas. 
A cloth suit, lined with silk, six guineas and a half. Each 
of these suits have two pair of breeches. If you use 

203 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

gold trimmings, fur lining, or lace, as I advise you to 
buy the articles from the merchant, you will see, and be 
a judge of, the additional expence. But if the cloaths 
here mentioned, which are such as are usually bought 
at Paris, cost you a greater price than is here set down, 
you will be imposed upon." ^ 

What one purchased abroad naturally varied with 
the taste and the means of the tourist. To return from 
Italy or France with nothing characteristically Italian 
or French was not to be thought of. The rich young 
Englishman usually bought a picture or two, some mo- 
saics, a clever statue, and perhaps what he took to be 
antiquities; for the eighteenth century was notable for 
collections of every sort, and the collector had been taught 
in his youth to admire the works of art brought from 
Italy by earlier tourists. So assiduous were the Eng- 
lish in gathering ciniosities that the Romans used to say, 
"Were our Amphitheatre portable, the English would 
carry it off." Unfortunately, in nothing does expert 
knowledge count for more than in the purchase of pic- 
tures, statues, coins, vases. In such transactions the 
unwary Englishman was the easy prey of the glib de- 
ceiver. He filled great boxes with sham antiques, with 
Raphaels and Domenichinos and Andrea del Sartos 
manufactured by some dauber in the galleries and with 
touching confidence shipped them to his ancestral halls 
in England. 

Misson enumerates the specialties of various Italian 
cities that one might advantageously buy: At Rome, 
prints, paintings, maps, plans of towns, perfumes, gloves, 
etc.; at Naples,; "Stockings, Waistcoats, Breeches, Caps, 
and other Works of Silk; perfum'd Soap, Snuff-boxes 
of Shell inlaid with Silver, good Spanish Snuff"; at Venice, 
"Points. All sorts of Works in Glass and Crystal: Snuff- 
boxes; Silk Stuffs; Fine Scarlet." ^ 

French ingenuity and artistic skill supplied all Europe 
with "books, watches, engravings, tea-cups, snuff-boxes, 
buckles, dressing gowns, etc." ^ Caution, however, was 

204 



A COLLECTION OF ANCIENT ARTISTIC TREASURES 





'4 



i ///'<*/-/ //Vv A/ /irrf-mJifueTiTri; rv/tx-^^r Jajiiter Tfixiaiaa, «»r A^exru* 

i£/Ae'J€atui o/ tJt4i^ Apollo <?/\pi*lplu>if . 

4 £/^- Cu//Jft/vc U/h ^y 'o/^f^J JiJii^t Hercule. . 

J ^^>4^ Cadoceitf <^Mereuriuit iuteznalK . 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

necessary in buying anything. Shopkeepers, particularly 
in Paris and in Naples, added to their incomes and to 
the tourist's discomfort by extortionate charges. As 
for Paris, "There is nothing," we are told, "which a 
stranger ought to be more careful of . . . particularly 
an Englishman, than laying out his money; for he will 
never go to buy anything, even of the most trifling nature, 
in which they will not attempt to cheat him." ^ His 
rule should therefore be never to give more than a third 
of the price first demanded. 

Smollett says of the dealers in Paris that the most 
reputable of them "think it no disgrace to practice the 
most shameful imposition. "^ Smollett is a chronic fault- 
finder, but an English traveler of more equable temper, 
touring in 1814 through France, visiting Dieppe, Paris, 
Lyons, the Pyrenees, and returning through Toulouse, 
assumes the facts to be well known and attempts an ex- 
planation: "The rapacity with which they (the French) 
attack the purses of English travellers is the commercial 
spirit in the only way in which it can at present exert 
itself. The higgling disposition of the French, which is 
so teazing to strangers, arises from their way of living; 
— buying their daily food almost by the mouthful : a 
handftil of spinach, a cucumber, a little fruit; the value 
small, but uncertain, and of course subject to perpetual 
bargaining. If you are obliged to higgle about a sous, 
you will naturally do the same in greater matters: and 
thus it becomes habitual." ' 

But Birkbeck's party appears on the whole to have 
suffered little from overcharges, for he goes on to say: 
"Our party, consisting of Mr. G., Flower, myself, and 
my son, a youth of fifteen, performed the journey for 
£70 sterling each person, including all our expenses, ex- 
cepting a few purchases which had no relation to travel- 
ling. We had no servant, and were tolerably attentive to 
economy." * 

On this trip they were gone eighty-six days and spent 
on an average sixteen or seventeen shillings a day. A 

205 



THE COST OF TRAVEL 

writer more than a generation earlier maintained with- 
out hesitation that a heavy outlay for travel in France 
was largely due to one's folly. This we may well believe, 
though we see that incidental items multiplied greatly 
and almost inevitably the cost of one's tour. 



206 



CHAPTER X 

THE CONTINENTAL TOUR! FRANCE AND SPAIN 



We are now prepared to follow a typical tour and to 
view more closely some of the countries that most at- 
tracted the tourist. Where to go and what to see was not 
easy to decide offhand for one's self. But fashion had 
much to do with the choice of the places visited and 
relieved the tourist of the necessity for over-anxious 
thought about the matter. In our day, the average 
tourist, in theory at least, shapes his tour on the Con- 
tinent about as he pleases, with little reference to pre- 
scribed custom, and unless he joins a personally con- 
ducted party following routes that have been well beaten 
for centuries, he is as likely as not to go into many out- 
of-the-way comers. But a century or two ago, although 
many travelers drifted somewhat aimlessly, the far larger 
proportion charted their course with some care before 
they left home and selected places that had an established 
reputation. 

On one matter eighteenth-century tourists were prac- 
tically all agreed, and that was that a grand tour on 
the Continent without a visit to Italy was no grand tour 
at all. Any one, however, who went to Italy generally 
spent time enough on the way thither and on the way 
home to get a fair general acquaintance with France 
and Germany and the Low Countries. 

In the eighteenth century, as in our time, certain cities 
stood out as preeminent, and these, or some of them, 
must be visited by any one who pretended to make the 
grand tour. Whatever else could be viewed along the 
route was clear gain, but of places of minor interest there 

207 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

were at best very large omissions. Accordingly, a few 
cities — Paris, Turin, Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, 
Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Amsterdam — to cite a few out 
of many, really determined the tourist's route, for the 
path he followed was commonly the one that led most 
directly from one great center to another. 

In part, this limitation of travel to conventional routes 
was a necessity. One might, indeed, imagine that at 
a time when nearly all land travel was by carriage p. 
good many places that now appear somewhat inacces- 
sible would have seemed easy to reach. We forget that 
a hundred and fifty years ago one necessarily spent from 
live to eight or even ten times as many hours in cover- 
ing a given distance as is now the case when one is hurled 
at dizzy speed to one's destination. The grand tour at 
best consimied in mere joumej-ing a very long time, 
much of which must be spent upon the road and in little 
wayside inns of painfully modest pretensions. There 
was, moreover, so much to be seen on the conventional 
tour that time was lacking for making experiments. It 
must be admitted, too, that for the most part tourists 
manifested little desire to \nsit places off the beaten 
track. Their interest in ^-ild scenery was very small, 
and their attention was very fully absorbed by the cities 
of European reputation. Of the country they saw more 
than enough on the way from one town to another. 

We must remember that the eighteenth century, to 
a remarkable degree, delighted in social life. Zimmer- 
man might write a large book on solitude, and Cowper 
might sigh for a lodge in some vast wilderness, but there 
is little e\'idence that voluntary recluses were much 
more numerous than they are to-day. 

To a considerable extent travel throughout Europe 
followed the lines of the immemorial trade routes. These 
ancient paths had been established by necessity, often 
passing through valleys determined by high mountain- 
barriers, and connecting cities whose prosperity was 
foreordained by their situation — a seaport, a town 

208 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

at the junction of two rivers. The choice of the tour- 
ist's route was, obviously, in considerable measure de- 
termined by the topography of the country, by the state 
of the roads, by the relative convenience or safety of 
travel by land and by water, and by the situation of the 
places deemed best worth a visit. With these cities in 
view he mapped out his route and on the way took in 
such other places as he could without too much trouble. 
In the space that we can allow it is clearly imprac- 
ticable to attempt to rival an eighteenth-century guide- 
book by describing, or even enumerating, one by one 
the towns that tourists visited. But, on the other hand, 
to give no account of the most typical points of interest 
would result in dealing with mere generalities. We may, 
therefore, select some characteristic cities and towns on 
the most traveled routes and endeavor in a few words to 
point out what were their special features of attraction. 

II 

Practically every Englishman who went abroad trav- 
eled more or less in France. In fact, unless he entered 
the Continent by way of Hamburg or through the Low 
Countries, or wandered far out of the ordinary paths 
by sailing for a Mediterranean port, he could not easily 
escape going through France, even had he so desired. 

But France was peculiarly alluring to most English- 
men. Any one with a little time to spare could make a 
considerable tour there without great trouble or expense. 
One had only to slip across the Channel to find one's 
self amidst a civilization strangely fascinating, and un- 
like what was to be seen at home. Tourists from every 
part of Europe trooped into France — Spaniards, Italians, 
Germans, Russians, Swedes, Hollanders; for French 
manners were the most polished, French cookery the 
most exquisite, French conversation the most brilliant, 
French literature the most entertaining. By going to 
France one came in contact with international culture. 

209 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

For yCvirs before the Revolution France was a doli>;ht- 
fiil place for English tourists, especially for those \v!\o 
belonged within tlie channed circle of society. Every- 
thing English was in favor, and visiting Englishmen, like 
Gibbon and Hume and Garrick. received the most marked 
attentions. Frenchmen gave themselves to the sineerest 
t\'pe of flattery — imitation, and stRn'e. acaM'ding to 
their light, to transform themselves into Englishmen. 
They "read Shakespeare; drank tea; da^ssed like jockeys, 
imported race-horses; set up English clubs and had ii>?- 
sctttblies h I'anghise destructive of the old French salon."' 
Smollett in 176^^ observed with satisfaction that the French 
were begimung to imitate the English in simpler ihvss and 
in the use of cold baths. James Edward Smith noted in 
17S6 that "the prevailing sentiments of most ranks were 
much in favour of the English, as the wonderful adoption 
of our tastes and fashions of late years ai\d the avidity 
with which our publications were read. abundantly evince."^ 
Arthur Youiv.^ in his Tri.::'cls^ commetUs on the new fashion, 
borrowed from England, of passing some time in the coun- 
try. We must note, however, with Leslie Stephen, that this 
imitation of English ways by Frenchmen trained to a very 
different type of living was "ridiculous because superficial." * 

But the fact that France saw so much that was at- 
tractive in English customs and habits not unnaturally 
made France more delightful to Englishmen, and when 
they sought a change of air and scene they swarmed 
across the Channel in great numbers. They went to 
Paris ' as a matter of course, but they also distributed 
themselves u-idely throughout the country. After the 
Seven Years' War it became increasingly the fashion to 
run over to the Continent for a brief round of travel, 
with no intention of making the elaborate grand tour. 
That was imderstood to be the aiTiiir of a young man. 
and it was made once in a lifetime. But a short and rel- 
atively inexpensive circular tour through the Low Coun- 
tries or a comer of France involved no great preparation 
and interfered little with one's ordinary affairs at home. 

210 



TOUJ{ OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

Not only the easy accessibility of France, but the 
cheapness of living as compared with Enj^land, marie 
it popular with people of morJerate incomes. Even Eng- 
lishwomen who were accustomed to comfort at home 
found the Continental tour agreeable, and spent a good 
deal of time in France. The Dowager Countess of Carlisle, 
for example, made a long sojourn at Aix, at Nlmes, at 
Avignon, and at Beaucaire. In her letters she gives 
interesting details of her life in Provence.' 

Partly for learning the French language and French 
manners, and partly for economy, many English people 
resided for years in various French towns, remaining in 
one place as long as they were satisfied and then moving 
on to another. A good instance of the moderately well- 
to-do type is afforded by Lady Knight. From 1778 to 
1786 she was in Italy. In 178O she went by way of Mar- 
seilles to Avignon and there remained several months. At 
Nimes she resided nearly a year. Another change took 
her to Vienne; and then, in 1789, she withdrew from 
troubled France to Italy. 

Before the middle of the century Lady Mary Wortley 
Montagu, writing from Dijon, says, with pardonable exag- 
geration: "There is not any town in France where there 
are not English, Scotch, or Irish families established. 
Here are in this town no loss than sixteen English families 
of fashion." 2 She had difficulty in selecting an out-of-the- 
way town in France where she might meet her scapegrace 
son without being "likely to find any English," and where 
he might if he pleased "be quite unknown; which is hardly 
possible in any capital town either of France or Italy." ' 
She finally selected Valence. 

Once a place had established itself in the favor of the 
English, it continued to draw other Englishmen, for there 
one might expect to find not merely one's countrymen but 
also inns, and sometimes houses to rent, that were intended 
to satisfy the demands of hurried, fault-finding tourists and 
of well-to-do families making a protracted stay. 

But the comforts they sought were by no means every- 

211 



TOUR OF FHANCK AXO SPAIN 

whoro nttaAiiaMc. Sotiio of tho citio?? atu! towtis of Fraticc. 
up to tho time of tho Rovohitiot\. woiv anioiii: tho most 
luxurious and splondid \n V.uvopc, but luauv parts of tho 
oountry woa^ sunk in nusory. Lady Mary Wortloy Mon- 
tagu's piotun" of tho dostitution in 1718 is pitiful, and it 
accurately doscribos tho co>nditions in many small commu- 
nittos two generations later. She mentions tho "objects 
of nusery" that one commonly mot and adds that "all the 
country \nllai:es of Franco show nothing olso. While tjio 
post-horses are changed, the whole town eomes out to beg, 
with such miserable starved faces, and thin tattered olothcs, 
they need no other eloquence to persuade one of the wri^tch- 
cdness of their conditio!!."^ An English tourist in 177J, 
contrasting France with Holland, might almost seem to bo 
cop^nng Lady ^La^y: "The whole kingdom swanns \nth 
beggars, an ONndonco of poverty, as well as defect in the 
laws. This observation was continued at every inn I 
came to. by crowds of wa^tches. I have often passed from 
the inn-door to my chaise through a tile of twenty or thirty 
of them." ' 

To Englishnien. indivd. not\\'ithstanding the la\-ish dis- 
play of wealth in favored centers. Fratiee as a whole seemed 
poor. Horace Walpolo characteristically writes to Conway 
in 1 771: "The instamv of their poverty that strikes we 
niost. who make political observations by the thonnometer 
of baubles, is. that there is nothing new in their shops. I 
know the faces of every snufnx'>x aiul ever>- tea-cup as well 
as those of ^Ladanlo du Lac and Monsieur Poirier." * 

Into this state of chronic poverty Franco, as we ha\e 
elsewhere seen, had gradually sunk in the course of the 
long n.ngt\ of Louis XIV. The recovery was gradu.al as the 
eighteenth century progressed, and did not bring prosperity 
to all parts of the country alike. Even the French cities, 
though often picturesque and fascinating from the modern 
point of Nncw. commonly presented in their older quarters a 
network of dark, narrow, dirty alleys and sttvets oooupied 
by a poverty-stricken population. ]\Lany of the surx^iving 
ancient portions of Dinant, of Evreux, of Vitr«5, of Rouen 

213 



TOUK OF Fi<ANCK AM) Si'AJN 

— though now more t;cnjj;ulou:;ly clcanr^d — ,',how what 
was once a normal urhan tyi>o. 

Those who know the flourishing' city of Clermont-Fer- 
rand to-day, with the farihionablc waterinj^-j^Iaoe Rr^yat in 
the suburbs, may be int(;re;;ted to note Arthur Youn^''s 
impressions of the place in 1789: " Much of it forms one of 
the worst built, dirtiest, and most stinkinp^ jJaces I have 
met with. There are many streets that can, for blackness, 
dirt, and ill-scents only be represented by narrow channels 
cut in a nij^ht-dunj^hill." ' Similar conditions were not 
rare in French provincial towns and may have tenrled to 
check the exploratory arrlor of the not too eager U^urist. 

Throughout France the contrasts were strikin/^ Young 
speaks of "bridges that cost 70 or 80,000/. and immense 
caur^;ways, to connect towns; but," he adds, "what trav- 
eller, with his person surrounded by the beggarly filth of an 
inn . . . will not condemn such inconsistender; as folly?" =! 

The keen-sighted Dr. Moore cautions the reader who is 
inclined to overrate the prosperity of France: "To retain a 
favoura};le notion of the wealth of France, we mu.st re- 
main in the capital, or vi.sit a few trading or manufacturing 
towns; but must seldom enter the chateau of the Seigneur 
or the hut of the pea.sant. In the one we shall find nothing 
but tawdry furniture, and from the other we shall be 
scared by penury."^ 

One writer in 1769 with some exaggeration cxprcs.scs the 
opinion that there i:; not "in all France, one well fed, well 
cloathed, warm, and substantial husbandman — which, of 
all mankind, is U) the state the most u.scful memh>er." '• And 
Wyndham, who chiefly aims U) gather up the current 
opiniom of his time, presents a similar view: "Some of the 
princes of the blood, and a few of the nobility, are more 
magnificent in their palaces and equipages than any of the 
English; but the other ranks of life are despicable, when 
compared with the riches, elegance, and opulence of the 
nobility and gentry of England, even those of an inferior 
class." 6 



213 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 



III 

Invismuch as English tourists in France commonly meant 
in any case to see Paris, there will be advantage in point of 
clearness if we consider first the trip to Paris, with a glance 
at a few places on the way, and then take up the other 
portions of the country. But at best, in our survey of 
France, we can touch upon only a few representative 
towns N\'ithout attempting to rival the details assembled l*y 
Nugent or De La Force. As already remarked, to write a 
guide-book to eighteenth-century France is no part of our 
task. 

The most popular way of going to Paris from London was 
to cross the Channel from Dover to Calais and then to drive 
down through Abbeville, Amiens, and Chaniilly. Many 
tourists landed at Boulogne, whence they joined the stream 
of travel from Calais to Paris. Still others from various 
English ports landed at Ha\Te or Dieppe and proceeded 
through Rouen to the capital. And many more entered 
France from Brussels and other points in the Low Countries. 

We may well begin \\4th C:d;iis. This now flourishing 
commercial city was in the eighteenth century mainly of 
interest to the tomist as the chief gateway to France. No 
Ruskin had arisen to point out the dignity and rugged 
beauty of the ancient church tower of Calais, and few 
tourists spent more time in the town than the leisurely 
conditions of eighteenth-century travel required. "The 
town," says Nugent, "is small and consists only of eight 
streets, that run from the market-place. But as this is 
the thoroughfare of the English in time of peace to France 
and Flanders, the place is pretty populous." * 

Boulogne, farther down the French coast, was a very 
didl towm, but its position as a seaport brought a good 
number of English tourists as birds of passage. The mere 
sights of the place were not sufficient to detain many \asi- 
tors beyond a few hours, but the convenience of access to 
England and the cheapness of living made the quiet old 

214 



JOUR OF IKANCK AND SIXAIN 

seaport a more or less permanent refuj^e for a conr;iflerable 
colony of En;,;Hshmen, many of whom had seen better days. 

On the way from Calais or Boulogne to Paris one passed 
through old Abbeville, the charm of which, with its red- 
}.;abled fronts and its wealth of carving, had as yet hardly 
been discovered. Amiens was more appreciated. The 
situation of the city made it a convenient place for spend- 
ing the night. It was recommended also for a longer stay, 
being very cheap and affording excellent opportunities for 
learning French.* Few Englishmen passed through Amiens 
" v/ithout a visit to the cathedral," ^ and, despite its Gothic 
architecture, they commonly bestowed upon it very hearty 
praise.'' 

Not on the main route from Calais to Paris, but a con- 
venient halting-place between Paris and the port of Dieppe, 
was the picturesque city of Rouen, which was certain to be 
visited by any one making the favorite tour of Normandy. 
The streets were narrow, as in the older quarters they still 
are, and none too clean, but its array of magnificent build- 
ings and its historical associations brought many English 
visitors. 

Before arriving at Paris the tourist coming from Calais 
usually passed through Chantilly and spent at least a little 
time in seeing the palace, celebrated for its magnificence, 
and in strolling through the forest, which, with its many 
birds, its canals and fountains and cascades, made "this 
one of the most charming places upon earth." * But even 
Chantilly sometimes made an unpleasant impression, for 
here was a trap for the unwary. ' ' Within one hundred yards 
of the palace," says Nugent, "and almost adjoining the 
stables, is the post-hou.se, where you are very well enter- 
tained, but extravagantly dear, so that you must be upon 
your guard in ordering dainties, if you consult economy." '^ 

Those who followed the post-route to Paris had only to 
see vSaint-Denis, with its great abbey containing the gor- 
geous royal tombs, and then they entered tho caj^ital of 
France, which was in a sense the capital of Europe. 



215 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 



IV 

Two Continental cities, Paris and Rome, were, in the 
estimation of the eighteenth-century tourist, of more im- 
portance than any others ; and to spend much time abroad 
without visiting these two capitals was to leave the best 
unseen. A great city like Paris, with its population of five 
or six hundred thousand inhabitants ^ and its manifold 
attractions, cannot well be disposed of in a few words, but 
in our survey details must largely be left to the makers of 
guide-books. What chiefly concerns us is the impression 
that the city as a whole made upon English tourists. 

The fascination that Paris had for all types of minds 
before the French Revolution we can even yet in a measure 
understand. But in the eighteenth century more truly, 
perhaps, than in otu* own day, Paris was France and the 
center of civilization. Most eighteenth-century books of 
travel assumed without discussion the preeminence of 
Paris over every other city of France, and, with an occa- 
sional reservation on some detail, over every other city of 
the world. Men and women of every type flocked there to 
get a glimpse of the fashions and follies that all strove 
to copy. To many Englishmen Paris was the only thing 
worth crossing the Channel for, particularly if they had 
made the Continental tour in their youth. Nowhere else, 
at all events, was society so organized as to concentrate 
all the talent of a great kingdom in one spot. 

Paris ministered to the taste of travelers of every sort — 
to the scholar, to the amateur in art, to the lover of music, 
to the mere pleasure-seeker. Even the cautious Andrews, 
in his "Letters to a Young Gentleman," ^ observes: "At 
your time of life, Paris will in some respects prove a more 
agreeable abode than London. You will in particular meet 
with a much more frequent recurrence of sights and shews 
to please you." 

When travel was not interrupted by war Englishmen went 
there in droves ' and took up their abode for some weeks or 

216 



crowning the bust of voltaire at the 
theAtre francais in 1778 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

months in the fashionable and expensive quarter of Saint- 
Germain.^ In the last third of the century the quarter near 
the Palais Royal and the Place des Victoires was also pop- 
ular.2 Good lodgings, however, were expensive and not 
always easy to get. And at times even the best did not en- 
tirely satisfy the critical tourist. Most Englishmen found 
Paris inferior to London in plain, unpretending comfort. 
Then as now, and far more than now, Parisian houses were 
cold in winter. Walpole writes in 1767 to George Montagu: 
" I shall not think of my journey to France yet; I suf- 
fered too much with the cold last year in Paris, where they 
have not the least idea of comfortable, but sup in stone 
halls, with all the doors open." ^ 

In any case the process of getting comfortably settled de- 
manded considerable attention from the tourist at the out- 
set. But the makers of guide-books gave minute "direc- 
tions for strangers upon their first coming to Paris," to 
keep them from going astray: "As soon as you enter Paris, 
you will be stopt in your chaise, and your pass and plumb- 
ings, and every corner of the whole chaise will be examined. 
When they have done, you order the postilion to drive to 
the hotel you intend to lodge at ; otherwise he will endeavor 
to carry you to his own favourite house, which has him in 
fee. You will probably be followed from the place of search, 
or from your entrance into Paris, to your hotel, by men-ser- 
vants out of place, many of whom can speak a little broken 
English, and have generally written characters in their 
pockets of some English gentlemen whom they have served. 
You may venture upon one whose character you most 
approve of, and let him immediately begin and stay with 
you, and assist in taking off your trunks, etc., but do not 
hire him till the next day, when your banker or correspond- 
ent is along with you, and you are thoroughly satisfied as 
to his character. Thirty sols, or fifteen pence English a 
day, is the usual wages, out of which he finds himself in 
every thing, unless you give him a livery." ^ 

With the path thus smoothed, the most timid tourists 
could hardly fail to take courage. At all events they came. 

217 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

Walpole complains, in September, 1765, of the swarms of 
English in the city, and expresses his satisfaction that 
most of them are going away soon. "It certainly was not 
my countrymen that I came to live with," says he.^ 

What to do with one's time in Paris was in part a matter 
of individual taste. But travelers bent upon making the 
conventional tour followed the lead of the guide-books, of 
which even then there was no lack.^ Nugent suggests an 
"Order to be observed in seeing the curiosities of Paris": 
"You may begin, then, and spend three whole days in 
seeing the Palace Royal, which is not too long a time for 
examining the finest collection of paintings in Europe. The 
next day you may visit the Hotel d'Antin, and that of 
count Toulouse. Then you may see the palace of the 
Tuilleries and the Louvre, the square called Place Venddme, 
and the Place des Victoires, all of which are not far dis- 
tant from one another." ^ 

Popular as Paris was with Englishmen, the city in the 
eighteenth century, if judged by modem standards, was 
far from being a paradise. The streets had for generations 
had an unsavory reputation for filth,* and their indescrib- 
able odor ^ could be detected long before one entered the 
city. One tourist in 1787 characterizes the air in several 
parts of Paris and the environs as "abominably fetid and 
highly putrid." ^ Babeau ' finds the streets of Paris well 
cared for. But such is not the opinion of eighteenth-cen- 
tury travelers.^ Many of the streets were, indeed, well 
paved, and they were supposed to be swept. But up to the 
time of the Revolution the rubbish and sweepings were not 
regularly collected and removed. Unmentionable vessels 
were emptied from windows at night into the streets, and 
the fragrance in the morning was overpowering. This 
practice was, of course, not unknown in London. But 
Paris was the arbiter of fashion and propriety for the rest 
of the world! 

As Paris had no footpaths, the mud in wet weather was 
spattered upon every pedestrian by the swiftly driven car- 
riages of the gentry. Arthur Young comments severely 

218 



LONDON IN HOLIDAY ATTIRE — THE LORD 
MAYOR'S PROCESSION 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

upon the usual condition of the streets in his day: "Walk- 
in^', which in London is so pleasant and so clean that ladies 
do it every day, is here a toil and a fatigue to a man, and 
an impossibility to a well dressed woman. The coaches 
are numerous, and, what arc much worse, there are an in- 
finity of one-horse cabriolets, which are driven by young 
men of fashion and their imitators, alike fools, with such 
rapidity as to be real nuisances, and render the streets ex- 
ceedingly dangerous, without an incessant caution. I saw 
a poor child run over and probably Icilled, and have been 
myself many times blackened with the mud of the kennels. 
Hence all persons of small or moderate fortune are forced 
to dress in black, with ?jlack stockings." * Obviously, every 
stranger of any social pretensions was compelled to follow 
the fashion and make frequent use of carriages, though the 
charges were high ^ and the quality low. Throughout most 
of the century rigid custom prescribed that a well-born 
tourist who spent some little time in any of the larger Con- 
tinental cities should have a coach, a coachman, and a 
lackey, and that after a certain hour he should not appear in 
the streets without a cane in his hand and his hat under 
his arm. Broadly speaking, this rule was not relaxed until 
the French Revolution, though a growing simplicity of 
attire marked the last quarter of the century, particularly 
among those who strove for new effects. 

But although the streets of Paris were narrow and not 
too clean, they had long had throughout Europe a reputa- 
tion for being exceptionally well lighted at night.^ And so 
they were, in comparison with most Continental cities, 
with "some eight thousand candles in damaged lanterns, 
which went out every now and then with a gust and left 
all in darkness." " By 1785 these had given place to the 
argand cyHnder lamps or "lampes ang^Hques"; which, as 
a delighted eontemporary notes, produced "an astonishing 
brightness, without smoke." ^ 

Every city has its unattractive sides, which expose it to 
criticism. In the eighteenth century Englishmen took no 
small pleasure in pointing out features in which London 

219 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

surpassed Paris. Before 1730, Breval, comparing London 
with Paris, remarks: "With regard to regular publick 
Places, the Advantage, notwithstanding their pompous 
Decorations, is indisputably on our Side. There are but 
four of these to the best of my Remembrance in all Paris, 
and the biggest not so large as Red-lion-Square." ^ 

Horace Walpole often makes caustic comments upon 
the things that he dislikes at Paris. Characteristically he 
remarks in his letters : ' ' The charms of Paris have not the 
least attraction for me, nor would keep me an hoiu* on their 
own account. For the city itself, I can not conceive where 
my eyes were: it is the ugliest beastliest town in the uni- 
verse. I have not seen a mouthful of verdure out of it, 
nor have they anything green but their treillage and win- 
dow-shutters. Trees cut into fireshovels and stuck into 
pedestals of chalk, compose their country. Their boasted 
knowledge of society is reduced to talking of their suppers, 
and every malady they have about them, or, know of." ^ 
"Perhaps this is her [Madame Roland's] first vision of 
Paris, and it is natiu-al for a Frenchwoman to have her 
head turned with it; though what she takes for rivers of 
Emerald, and hotels of ruby and topaz, are to my eyes, that 
have been ptirged with euphrasy and rue, a filthy stream, 
in which every thing is washed without being cleaned, 
and dirty houses, ugly streets, worse shops, and churches 
loaded with bad pictures. Such is the material part of this 
paradise." ^ And again: " It is not pleasant to leave groves 
and lawns and rivers for a dirty town with a dirtier ditch, 
calling itself the Seine." ^ 

Of the same tenor is the criticism of a professional 
fault-finder like Hazlitt, about a half-century later. He 
finds the streets narrow, the pavement bad, and he is 
constantly afraid of being run over by reckless drivers. 
In general: "Paris is a beast of a city to be in — to those 
who cannot get out of it. Rousseau said well, that all 
the time he was in it, he was only trying how he should 
leave it." ^ 

Travelers often remarked upon the sharp contrasts 

220 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

everywhere presented at Paris. One of the most friendly 
critics complained of the long line of washerwomen along 
the banks of the Seine: "This is an abominable nuisance, 
and renders the views up the river, from the center of 
the Pont de la Concorde the most complete melange 
of filth and finery, meanness and magnificence I have 
ever beheld." ^ But notwithstanding some defects Paris 
was a brilliant city to look upon, and constantly improving 
in appearance.2 Dr. Rigby in 1789 found there a greater 
number of handsome buildings than in London. 

Paris before the Revolution was not yet filled with the 
artistic spoils of half Europe, as it was after Napoleon's 
great campaigns, but it was already rich in libraries ^ and 
works of art. The King's Library, the nucleus of the 
present Bibliotheque Nationale, already contained by the 
middle of the century "ninety thousand printed volumes 
and near forty thousand MSS." ' There were collections 
of pictures at the Louvre, the Tuileries, and particularly 
at the Palais Royal, which were among the foremost in 
Europe.^ 

To see all these treasures, conscientious tourists made 
the rounds prescribed in the guide-books. The poet 
Gray writes from Paris to his friend Aston: "Our Morn- 
ings have been mostly taken up in Seeing Sights: few 
Hotels or Chiurches have escaped us, where there is any- 
thing remarkable as to building, Pictures or Statues. Mr. 
Conway is as usual the companion of our travels, who, 
till we came had not seen anything at all; for it is not 
the fashion here to have curiosity." ^ 

The chief aim, indeed, of most people of fashion was to 
waste time as gracefully as possible. Eighteenth-century 
Parisians were not notably fond of out-of-door sports, 
— though here and there an enthusiast took up English 
horse-racing and fox-hunting and boxing, — but when 
arrayed in all their finery, they enjoyed strolling in the 
public gardens, or taking the air in a coach. An obser- 
ver about 1770 remarks: They are "more extravagant 
in their dress than in their eating and drinking : for though 

221 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

a Frenchman eats nothing but soup meagre every day 
in the week, you will rarely see him without his lac'd 
coat, silk stockings, powdered hair, and lac'd ruffles, 
which are often tack'd upon either false sleeves or a shirt 
as coarse as a hop-sack." ' 

A favorite place of resort throughout the century 
for Parisians and for tourists was the gardens of the 
Tuileries. "Hither the ladies flock to reap the fruits of 
their morning labour at their toilets, and the men no less 
vain and extravagant than the women, to display their 
feathers and embroider'd coats." ^ "The entrance into 
these gardens," says Andrews, "is free to persons decently 
clad; but vigorously interdicted to domestics in livery, 
or women of servile appearance. Whoever they may be 
that are admitted, they must not seem of the low classes." ' 
Not far away was the Palais Royal, with its great en- 
closed garden, its crowds of curious sight-seers and women 
of questionable character. Other attractive recreation 
centers were "the course or ring for taking the air in 
coaches: the garden of Luxemburg: the garden of Cond^: 
the garden of Soubise: the king's garden: the garden 
of the arsenal: the gardens of the archbishop near Notre 
Dame: besides the Place Royale, and the avenues of the 
Hotel de Breton Villiers, where a great many people 
walk in the evening." ^ Especially popular was the 
promenade along the fortifications. "Paris being walled 
in, the ramparts, more than half round the whole city, 
are adorned with four rows of stately trees, in the center 
of which is a broad road for coaches, and on each side 
very fine shady walks. Upon these ramparts are to be 
seen, every fine evening, many of the people of fashion 
in their coaches, which are often gaudy, but oftener truly 
elegant, and painted in a most exquisite manner; not 
with arms, crest, or initial letters, but with a variety of 
pastoral scenes." ^ 

In the days of walled towns there was usually a swift 
transition from city to open country; and such was the 
case at Paris. Hazlitt makes an interesting comment 

222 



THE GARDENS AND WEST FRONT OF THE PALACE 
OF THE TUILERIES AT THE END OF THE EIGHT- 
EENTH CENTURY 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

upon the state of things in his time: "It is a blessing 
to counterbalance the inconveniences of large cities built 
within walls, that they do not extend far beyond them. 
The superfluous population is pared off, like the pie- 
crust by the circumference of the dish — even on the 
court side, not a hundred yards from the barrier of Neuilly, 
you see an old shepherd tending his flock, with his dog 
and his crook and sheepskin cloak, just as if it were a 
hundred miles off, or a hundred years ago. It was so 
twenty years ago. I went again to see if it was the same 
yesterday. The old man was gone, but there was his 
flock by the road-side, and a dog and a boy, grinning 
with white healthy teeth, like one of Murillo's beggar- 
boys." ' 

When the tourist wearied of the galleries or the streets 
he could sip coffee, tea or chocolate at a cafd ^ or could 
drop in at the Cabinet Litt^raire in the Rue Neuve des 
Petits Champs, and for four livres a month have the 
privilege of reading the English newspapers.^ After the 
diversions of the day there was still no lack at night. 
Especially popular with tourists were the theaters. "Their 
operas at Paris," says Nugent, "are extremely fine, the 
music and singing excellent, the stage large and mag- 
nificent, and supplied with good actors, the scenes well 
suited, and changed almost imperceptibly; the dancing 
exquisite; the cloathing rich and proper, and with great 
variety; they are frequented by a vast concourse of the 
nobility, who usually join in the chorus with the actors." ^ 
At the playhouses comedies were very popular; and as 
for tragedy, "The most sprightly and fashionable people 
of both sexes flock to these entertainments in preference 
to all others, and listen with unrelaxed gravity and atten- 
tion." ^ 

In any case there was abundant opportunity for killing 
time. Says Andrews: "The amusements at Paris have 
by some fretful peevish people been represented of insuffi- 
cient variety to please the different taste of those num- 
erous travellers that croud hither from all parts of Europe. 

223 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

It is difficult to tell upon what ground this complaint is 
founded. The theatres are open all the year, and there 
is no day in the whole twelvemonth, which does not afford 
some pastime or shew, either temporal or spiritual, if 
one may use such an expression." ^ 

One might discourse endlessly upon Paris, upon the 
churches, the palaces, the gardens, the theaters, the 
opera, but for our purpose it is necessary to touch upon 
only a few matters. Of particular interest to us is the 
brilliant society that made Paris preeminent in Europe,' 
and even more important is the all-pervasive influence 
of the Parisian standards of dress, of manners, of speech, 
which extended their imperious sway to every portion 
of Europe that was thought to be worth \'isiting — to 
Madrid, to St. Petersburg, to Rolognn. to Rome, to Naples, 
to Vienna, to Berlin, as well as to the innumerable petty 
courts of Germany. "Few nations in Europe," says 
Sherlock, "have retained their original characters. They 
have almost all adopted the French fashions and customs; 
it is a uniform that they all wear; some aukwardly enough 
— others wHlth more grace. The very small towns of 
Germany have the same simplicity that they had in 
the time of Tacitus; but in the large cities everything is 
d la Franqaisc. It is so much better for the manners and 
the table; and so much the worse for the morals. It 
were to be ^\4shed that the Italians, who have nothing 
to lose in point of morals, would imitate the French in 
everything. In the north of Italy they are much Frenchi- 
fied; but the inhabitants of the South are, dissimulation 
excepted, such as nature formed them." ^ 

Polite society throughout Europe in the eighteenth 
century was far more compact and acted more as a unit 
than in our democratic days. There was, therefore, 
far more pressure upon the traveler to conform to con- 
ventional rules than in our time. Smollett complains 
of the t}Tanny of fashion in France, and other tourists 
echo the complaint in Italy and Germany. But even 
Smollett felt obliged when at Paris to conform in every 

224 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

particular to the dictates of French fashion: "When 
an En^'Hshman comes to Paris, he cannot appear until 
he has undergone a total metamorphosis.* At his first 
arrival it is necessary to send for the taylor, peruquier, 
hatter, shoemaker, and every other tradesman concerned in 
the equipment of the human body. He must even change 
his h;ucklcs, and the form of his ruffles; and, though at 
the risk of his life, suit his cloaths to the mode of the 
season. For example, though the weather should be 
never so cold, he must wear his habit d'eti or de mi-saison, 
without presuming to put on a warm dress before the 
day which fashion has fixed for that purpose; and neither 
old age nor infirmity will excuse a man for wearing his 
hat upon his head, either at home or abroad. The good- 
man, who used to wear the beau drap d'Angleterre, quite 
plain all the year round, with a long bob, or tye pcrriwig, 
must here provide himself with a camblet suit trimmed 
with silver for spring and autumn, with silk cloaths for 
summer, and cloth laced with gold, or velvet for winter; 
and he must wear his bag-wig a la pigeon. This variety 
of dress is absolutely indispensable for all those who pre- 
tend to any rank above the mere bourgeois. On his 
return to his own country all this frippery is useless.^ 
. . . Since it is so much the humour of the English at 
present to run abroad, I wish they had antigallican spirit 
enough to produce themselves in their own genuine Eng- 
lish dress, and treat all the French modes with the same 
philosophical contempt which was shown by an honest 
gentleman, distinguished by the name of Wig-Middleton. 
That unshaken patriot still appears in the same kind of 
scratch pcrriwig, skimming-dish hat, and slit sleeve, which 
were worn five-and-twenty years ago, and has invariably 
persisted in this garb, in defiance of all the revolutions 
of the mode." ^ And in his vigorous fashion the indig- 
nant British censor continues: "Of all the coxcombs on 
the face of the earth, a French petit maitre is the most 
impertinent; and they are all petit mattres, from the mar- 
quis who glitters in lace and embroidery to the gar^on 

225 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

barhicr covered ^^nth meal, who struts with his hair in a 
long queue, and his hat under his arm." * 

A generation or more after Smollett's day, the well- 
known traveler Eustace even ventured to recommend 
the Scotch Highland costume in preference to the French : 
"A few improvements might make it perfect, and qualify 
it admirably for all the purposes of a national habit, and 
would very soon, by its intrinsic merit and beaut}^ super- 
sede the monkey attire of France." - 

In order to escape amused comment, even though 
politely concealed, English tourists were in general ad- 
\'ised to take with them into France only indispensable 
articles of dress and to add to their wardrobe after their 
arrival: "Into a small tnmk I would have you put a 
dozen of shirts; they ought to be much coarser than 
the English in general wear them; otherwise their slovenly 
manner of washing (which is by beating them with a 
board against a stone in cold water) vnW soon oblige you 
to buy others; half a dozen pairs of shoes; a pair of boots, 
and buckskin breeches, would be requisite, as the French 
leather is not proof against water: your stockings should 
be silk, which is the fashion of France, even among the 
meanest mechanics; these, with the cloaths on your back 
and the hat on your head, with the best French diction- 
ary and grammar extant, are all the luggage you ought 
to take; for at the first town you propose to reside at, 
you should fit out, d la mode de France, and continue so 
as long as you reside in that country."^ 

He is a bold and not always wise man who defies the 
judgment of the world; and even so sensible an English- 
man as Arthur Young, while at Paris, yielded obedience 
to fashions that he felt to be absurd. And although an 
occasional grumbler objected, the great throng of tourists 
fell into line and as far as possible conformed their dress 
and their manners to the standards of Paris. Some Eng- 
lish exquisites, indeed, with the proverbial zeal of new 
converts, quite overdid the matter both at home and 
abroad, and became the laughing-stock of Europe. 

226 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

The diffusion of French fashions throughout the Con- 
tinent proceeded in the leisurely eighteenth-century way, 
owing to the slow means of transport. The inevitable 
result was that, in proportion as cities were out of touch 
with Paris, fashions were likely to be months or even 
years behind those of the French capital. This was 
true, in a measure, in England itself. For example, in 
1774, in a letter to the Countess of Ossory, Walpole says: 
"I hope there was no graver reason for his (Lord Ossory 's) 
not coming, than not having a coat trimmed with Brus- 
sels-point, or buttons to his cloaths, edged with fur, which 
our English travellers, who never see good company in 
Paris, are made to believe by their tailor, are French 
fashions, and which I, who did live in good company, 
never beheld there; nor, indeed, anything in dress that 
was very absurd." * 

Only by reasonable conformity to established modes 
coiild an ordinary tourist — we can, of course, take no 
account of Franklin in his plain cloth suit — hope to 
be admitted to Parisian society, the epitome of all that 
was illustrious in France. That society has been so often 
described by brilliant pens that there is no need of going 
over ground already familiar. It is enough to point out 
a few characteristic features that particularly concern the 
tourist. 

We have already remarked upon the interest that 
Frenchmen in the eighteenth century had begun to take 
in the English and their ways. But the fact is notable 
that true Parisians had long given little heed to the rest 
of the world. "If something foreign arrives at Paris," 
says Walpole, "they either think they invented it, or 
that it has always been there." ^ The growing popular- 
ity of English fashions and ideas as the century progressed 
was in a sense a forerunner of the Revolution.' One may 
question whether eighteenth-century England and Eng- 
lishmen altogether deserved to be idealized and idolized 
in the fashion that became popular in the quarter-century 
before the French Revolution, but love is proverbially 

227 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SIWIN 

blind. At all events, Eni^Hsh institutions as a wiiolo 
marked a hii^h point of porfootion it\ comparisoti \ntii 
any thing that France or Italy or Goniiany had attained. 

Althoni;h many Fronchmou wore oai^vr to adopt Ktij;- 
lish ways, thoy were not i\otable (ov aoquaititanee wnth 
Enjjland. Walpole complains: "I could not a">nceivc 
that they knew so very little of a country which has 
lately been so much in vogue with them." * Through- 
out the eot\tury Montesquieu and Voltaire were marked, 
exceptions in their real familiarity witii the groat island 
Idngdom. Most French visitors to England caught a 
mere glimpse. 

Upon these French birds of passage we have two char- 
acteristic coniments: Gilly Williajns writes to Schvyn 
from l>rii;htliohnstone (Brighton) in 1764: "You would 
laugh at our collection, though I assure you wc arc much 
obliged to France for sending us twice a week some very 
extraordinary exotics. Barbers, milliners, barons, counts, 
arrive here almost every tide, and they stay here till 
their finances are so exhausted, that they decamp uf'on 
the stage-coach and not in it." ^ And Walpole in 178^? 
tells Mann in one of his letters: "We have swanns of 
French here daily; but they come as if they had laid 
wagers that there is no such place as England, and only 
wanted to verify its existence, or that they had a mind 
to dance a minuet on English ground; for they turn on 
their heel the moment after landing." ^ Wliat Walpole 
writes is never to be talvcn too literally. lie had himself 
entertained in May, 1760, a large party of French gentle- 
men and ladies of quality at Strawberry Rill.* and he 
observed in his "Memoirs of George III"" that after 
the peace with France muncrous French travelers visited 
England," some even going as far as Ireland. 

In far greater numbers were Englishmen in France; 
and, if their rank permitted, they were very well received 
in Parisian society. Wliat made social intercourse easier 
and English travelers more welcome was the groNN-ing 
popularity of English literature, at least in translations, 



TOUli OF IWANCK AND SPAIN 

in the yo.ncTHtum ju:;t ?x;foro the Revolution. Richarrlson, 
for example, in Walpole's phrase, had "::tuperied the 
whole French nation." ' With few exception.s, however, 
Frenchmen had little or no mastery of spoken Eny]v.:h;^ 
and it may be dou?>t<;d whether even the most Anglicized 
Frenchmen fully underr;tood the temperament of their 
Enj^lish ^mests. 

The French and the En;dish saw so many things from 
difTerent points of view that it was only with large 
reservations that most Englishmen prai:;od the French 
people. As elsewhere pointed out, the average lower- 
class, eighteenth-century English estimate of the French 
was hostile and contemptuous,^ and some of this feeling 
was inevitably shared by English tourists. The English 
traveler Clenche remarks as a matter of course that 
"all wise men naturally have a perfect aver;;ion for the 
French." * And three generations later Lady Knight, 
who spent much time in France and enjoyed her life there, 
judged the French people severely. Writing to a friend 
in 1793, she says: "Ambition and avarice are the two 
leading passions of the French, consequently self-love 
governs them, and I should be ashamed to say how very 
few I know or have knov/n that I do not think hate all 
other nations; nor do I believe anything can be more 
hateful to the English nation than that the French 
should be so mixed in our society; they will undermine 
our national character. I wish a tax was to be laid on all 
tutors and gouvernantes of that nation, nay even on 
all servants."*^ 

Judgments so unreserved cannot be accepted without 
qualification. But undoubtedly some charges have a large 
basis of truth. For one thing, the English regarded the 
French people in general as lacking in delicacy. vSays 
Hazlitt, "A Frenchman (as far as I can find) has no idea 
answering to the word nasty." ' This charge is repeated 
by English travelers of every type. James Edward Smith 
cites a striking experience of his in a French stage-coach. 
His companions were reputable people of the middle 

229 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

ranks of life, several merchants, "a lawj'-er, an elderly 
woman of genteel appearance, and a beautiful girl of six- 
teen. . . . Shall I record that in this company the most 
undisguised and shocking descriptions were given of 
the debaucheries of the capital, and particulars which 
would scarcely be whispered in English discussed wdth 
the utmost exactness." ^ Hazlitt had a similar experience 
in the diligence between Evreux and Paris. ^ "The 
Gentleman's Guide" (1770), in an unquotable pas- 
sage,^ comments upon the astonishing frankness of the 
conversation of "gentlemen and ladies"* in company 
at Montpellier. One docs not expect Smollett, the author 
of "Roderick Random" and "Humphry Clinker," to 
be easily shocked at conversational freedom, but he says of 
French people in his usual sweeping fashion: "They 
are utter strangers to what we call common decency; and 
I could give you some high-flavoured instances, at which 
even a native of Edinburgh would stop his nose." ^ 

The charge of indelicacy was a very old one,® and it 
is not unheard even in our day. A mild instance is the 
following, cited by Birkbeck, who was traveling in south- 
em France: When the diligence halted, "With the curi- 
osity common to travelers we attended to the alighting 
of this party : as the lady ^ stepped out of the carriage 
she discovered a lapse of stocking, and continuing her 
chat with the gentleman who had handed her out, she 
deliberately adjusted it and tied her garter. This is 
characteristic of southern France, and tends to settle a 
point in natural history, — that a French lady's knee is 
as modest as the elbow of an English lady; which I am 
satisfied was the case in this instance." ^ 

From indelicacy to indecency the step was short. Eng- 
lish tourists complain of the filthy practices almost uni- 
versal in French towns, that made it painful for "a per- 
son of the least delicacy or decency" to "walk through 
their streets." ^ 

Very common, too, among men and women of all classes, 
notwithstanding the stress laid upon forms of polite- 

230 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

ness, was "the habit of spitting up and down their houses 
and churches." ^ This practice, observes Young, "which 
is amongst the highest as well as the lowest ranks, is de- 
testable : I have seen a gentleman spit so near the cloaths 
of a dutchess that I have stared at his unconcern." ^ "In 
point of cleanliness," he remarks in the same passage, 
"I think the merit of the two nations is divided; the 
French are cleaner in their persons, and the English 
in their houses; I speak of the mass of the people, and 
not of individuals of considerable fortune." ' But the 
king's ceremonial ablutions were usually on a very limited 
scale. For his bath at the coucher, "the grand chamber- 
lain presents him a towel moistened at one end . . . and 
His Majesty washes his face and hands and wipes himself 
with the unmoistened end."^ And there is no place al- 
lowed for any more elaborate cleansing in the morning 
ceremonial. This solemn function was witnessed morning 
and evening by those whose rank entitled them to be 
present, and they doubtless took pleasure in limiting 
themselves to the same regimen as their sovereign. 

The various sights of Paris were entertaining and in- 
structive. But there still remained the brilliant French 
society, access to which was by no means a matter of 
course for English tourists. Walpole writes West in 
1739: "We have seen very little of the people them- 
selves, who are not inclined to be propitious to strangers, 
especially if they do not play and speak the language 
readily." And twenty-five years later, commenting 
on Englishmen who were dissatisfied with their recep- 
tion at Paris, he observes in a letter to the Earl of Hert- 
ford: " If they are not content now, I wish they knew how 
the English were received at Paris twenty years ago — 
why, you and I know they were not received at all." ^ 
Another Englishman in 1769, commenting upon strangers 
at Paris, remarks: "Nine tenths of them are never ad- 
mitted into good company — or in other words, into their 
supper parties, and all beside is mere form and ceremony 
— whereas at London, Rome, and Naples, etc., a stranger 

231 



TOl R OF FllANCK AND SPAIN 

of any rank cots into the most airtwablo parties \nih 
little troublo: in this respect the unsociableness of tlie 
French destroys the tnie politeness." ' 

The common complaint of the lack of FnMieh hospi- 
tality was doubtless often in part due to the fact that a 
French host felt no obligation to seek out strat\j;ers in 
order to feed them. Lady Mor,i:;an tells of "an Kn>:Ush 
gentleman, resident at Paris," who assured her "that 
an IrishTnan. whom he had known in France nvmy years, 
left his sm;Ul fortxme to the only I'Venchman who had ever 
offered him a dinner; at once to mark his owni gratitude 
and the rarity of the event." But she adds: "The out- 
cry, indeed, amongst the strangers who now \nsit Paris, 
against the want of hospitality in its inhabitants, is much 
more universal than it is well founded. . . . No hospi- 
tality, and indeed no fortune, could hold out against 
those legions of the idle and imoccupied, who, in the ex- 
uberance of we;ilth. or of curiosity leave England to — 
Promener leur ennui ailleurs." ' And she adds; "Few 
persons, I imagine, well introduced by letters of recom- 
mendation, or by their personal talents, or celebrity, \rill 
join in this outcry against French hospitality; or will 
deny that the access to a Frencli house, where the stranger 
has once been received, is both easy and gracious. It is, 
however, quite true, that dinners of cea^nony are by no 
means so general in Paris as in London or Dublin." "' 

Unquestionably, the reception that the tourist got 
depended largely upon his social standing and his person;U 
characteristics. For example, just after the great Revolu- 
tion had spent its fury, the genial John Carr was received 
with the most unallected kindness into the households 
of French people of charming manners. At the conclu- 
sion of his Nnsit he says: "I had to part \\'ith those who, 
in the short space of one fleeting month, had by their 
endearing and flattering attentions . . . made me forget 
that I was even a 5/ra«grr." * 

Once admitted to French society the English as a rule 
found much to criticize. Lady Montagu's satirical por- 

232 



TOUR OF IRANCE AND SPAIN 

trait of French ladies in 1718 anticipates the sketches of 
half a century later. "I have seen all the beauties, and 

such (I can't help making use of the coarse word) 

nauseous creatures! so fantastically absurd in their dress! 
so monstrously unnatural in their paints! their hair cut 
short, and curled round their faces, and so loaded with 
powder, that it makes it look like white wool! and on 
their cheeks to their chins, unmercifully laid on, a shining 
red japan, that glistens in a most flaming manner, so 
that they seem to have no resemblance to human faces. 
I am apt to believe, that they took the first hint of their 
dress from a fair sheep newly radflled." ^ Travelers 
admit that the ladies of Paris have "the most enchanting 
airs in the world and an eternal show of vivacity in their 
eyes." 2 But, says one, "the women of rank make them- 
selves hideous by great blotches of paint upon their cheeks, 
which, in some ladies, are as well defined as the circumfer- 
ence of a circle, and as red as the Saracen's Head upon 
a sign-post." ^ But in spite of the too abundant rouge 
and puffs and powder. Englishmen of social instincts 
found themselves, particularly during the second half of 
the century, very much at home in many circles of Pari- 
sian society. As in some of the higher society of England, 
cards and billiards occupied a good part of the day. Says 
Nugent: "They are much addicted to gaming, which is 
the very soul of all their assemblies, and the only means 
for a foreigner to ingratiate himself in their company." * 
And Walpole observes: "In French houses it is impos- 
sible to meet with anything but whist, which I am de- 
termined never to learn again. I sit by and yawn; which, 
however, is better than sitting at it to yawn." ^ Gambling 
was, indeed, almost obligatory for one who wished to 
be popular in Parisian society." For, as Dr. Moore re- 
marks upon his admittance to exclusive companies under 
the patronage of a French marquis: "Nothing can be a 
greater proof of his influence in some of the most fashion- 
able circles than his being able to introduce a man with- 
out a title, and who never games." ' And it was well 

233 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

he did not, for, as Smollett observes, people of high rank 
"learn to play not barely for amusement, but also with a 
view to advantage." ^ Or, in the words of a much earlier 
writer, "Even the ladies do not want tricks to strip a 
bubble." 2 

Obviously, eighteenth-century Parisian society had no 
very rigid standard of morals. One might, indeed, ob- 
serve that an Englishman of fashion had no need to go 
abroad in order to become an accomplished rake. But 
Paris offered irresistible attractions to a free-liver. Im- 
morality was there cultivated as a fine art. "This liber- 
tinism," says Keysler, "takes so with young travellers 
that they look upon it as the chief accomplishment that 
they are to acquire in France; and, indeed, the young 
gentlemen who come from Paris are as well known as 
a bird is by its note." ^ 

Two generations later, Carr, one of the friendliest of 
critics, remarks: "The married women of France feel 
no compunctious visitings of conscience in cherishing 
about them a circle of lovers, amongst whom their hus- 
bands are merely more favored than the rest." ^ He is 
good enough to add that he thinks the relations platonic. 

Moralists as a rule tend to deliver sweeping judgments, 
and Paris was a frequent theme for denunciation. Be- 
yond question Paris was a perilous city for wealthy young 
strangers who were not averse to forbidden pleasures. 
But exaggeration is easy; and the sober judgment of 
Nugent is probably not far astray: "The young people 
(of France) are debauched and irreligious; but we must 
own that this is compensated by the solidity and judi- 
cious behaviour of those who are more advanced in 
life." 5 

But, after all, the chief complaint against the French 
was of another sort, — that they could not be trusted. 
They were "charged with insincerity in their complais- 
ance, and with being little better than genteel hypocrites 
in their cringes and impertinent ceremonies." ^ It is in- 
deed true that manners in the higher circles of English 

234 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

society were in a measure an imitation of the manners of 
Paris, with their ease and gayety. Many Englishmen of 
fashion found in France all that made life seem worth liv- 
ing. Young men were sent abroad as much for the sake 
of learning the graces as for any other reason. But in 
general English imitation of French traits was liable to be 
awkward. "What strikes me the most, upon the whole," 
says Walpole, "is the total difference in manners between 
them and us." ^ The Frenchman was trained from his 
earliest childhood to respond instinctively to the lightest 
touch, and to utter small courtesies with every breath. The 
more impassive Englishman remained stolid. Less grace- 
ful in manner and in speech, he prided himself on his blunt 
sincerity. "I am very far from thinking," says one, "that 
the plain and honest character of an Englishman is not 
preferable to a glittering superficies of politeness." ^ Most 
Englishmen took the French too seriously. "A French- 
man," says Dr. Moore, "not only means nothing beyond 
common civility by the plentiful shower of compliments 
which he pours on every stranger; but also, he takes it 
for granted that the stranger knows that nothing more is 
meant." ^ 

Whether sincere or not, French courtesy smoothed the 
way for multitudes of English totuists. Nearly all strangers 
found the French people amiable.^ People in France did 
not stare at clothes out of fashion,^ and they even toler- 
ated English French. Of this considerate kindliness Moore 
cites a striking instance. At Strassburg he attended a play 
which presented the English in a ridiculous light. "An 
old French officer, who was in the next box to us, seemed 
uneasy and hurt at the peals of laughter which burst from 
the audience at some particular passages : He touched my 
shoulder and assured me that no nation was more respected 
in France than the English."^ Elsewhere Moore remarks: 
' ' A stranger, quite new and unversedin their language, whose 
accent is uncouth and ridiculous in the ears of the French, 
and who can scarcely open his mouth without making 
a blunder in grammar or idiom, is heard with the most 

235 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

serious attention, and never lauj^hed at. even when he 
litters the oddest solecism or equivocal expression." ' 

But as most Eni^Hshmen were measurably aware of 
their deficiencies, the French not unnatur;illy found thetn 
inclined to be silent in company. Englishmen, in their 
tuni, accustotned to hear the French extolled for bril- 
liancy in conversation, noted with wonder the silence 
of French people when they might have been expected 
to be talkative. Says Young: "I came to this king- 
dom expecting to have my ears constantly fatigued 
with the infinite volubility and spirits of the people, of 
which so many persons have written, silting. I suppose, 
by their English firesides. At Montpellier, though fif- 
teen persons and some of them ladies were present, I 
found it impossible to make them break their inflexible 
silence \\'ith more than a monosyllable, and the whole 
company sat more like an assembly of tongue-tied quakers, 
than the mixed company of a people famed for loquacity." " 
Young notes the same thing at Nimes and at Rouen: 
"Of all smnbrc and trtste meetings a French tabic dliote 
is foremost; for eight minutes a dead silence, and as to 
the politeness of addressing a conversation to a foreigner, 
he ^^'ill look for it in vain. Not a single word has any 
where been said to me unless to answer some question." ^ 
Even in our day the tourist in France can hardly avoid 
noting that Frenchmen not already acquainted aa^ im- 
likcly to distract their attention from the serious business 
of eating for the siike of exchanging remarks with strangers. 

The discussion of French traits has drawn us away from 
the capital. Our survey of Paris is necessarily incom- 
plete at many points, since we can only glance at a few 
characteristic features and pass on. But we have ob- 
scr\'ed enough to realize some of the features that com- 
pelled every tourist to include Paris in his Continental 
journey. 

We must now glance at a few other characteristic 
French cities. We cannot enumerate all the various 
excursions commonly made from Paris, — to Saint-Cloud, 

236 



TOCK OF i KANCP: and SPAIN 

to Marly, to Saint-Denis, to Vinccnnes, to Fontaine- 
bloau, — but wc must give a word to Versailles. The 
splendor of this royal abode had already somewhat faded 
in the course of the ei^^hteenth century. The magni- 
ficent gardens and fountains were often neglected, and 
the hedges and trees withered. ^ Some Englishmen, to 
their credit be it said, had sufficient discernment to CTiti- 
cizo the defects at Versailles. Walpolo in 1739 describes 
"the great front" of the palace as "a lumber of little- 
ness, composed of black brick, stuck full of bad old Vjusts, 
and fringed with gold rails." ^ Another traveler finds in 
1769 that "the ornaments of Trianon and Marly . . . 
are in a most false and vicious taste." ^ And still another, 
commenting on the palace, observes in 1773: "The 
apartments are dirty, which cannot be wondered at, when 
you are told that all the world rove about the palace at 
pleasure; I went from room to room as my choice directed 
me, into the King's bed-chamber, dressing-room, etc., 
in all of which were numbers of people, and many of them 
indiflcrently clad." * 

By the middle of the century Versailles had lost also 
much of the social brilliancy that had marked it in the 
days of the great Louis. The court was eclipsed by the 
Parisian salons. But, nevertheless, no tourist felt that 
he had seen France until he had seen Versailles, for, as 
Babeau remarks, "all the courts of Europe were modelled 
on that of Versailles"; as were "all the salons on that 
of Paris." 5 

The visitor could go by water as far as Sevres and then by 
carriage to the palace, or he could drive all the way. 
Nugent remarks: "You may have a gay and easy gilt 
coach or chariot, and a coachman, with a good pair of 
horses, for twelve livres, which is about ten shillings a 
day, to attend you from seven in the morning till mid- 
night, and to carry you to Versailles, etc." One required 
a special contract, witnessed before a notary, to enable 
the coachman to pass outside the gates of Paris .^ 

Visitors could look up in De la Force ^ the ceremonial 

237 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

attending the dining and supping of the king in public and 
be admitted to gaze upon the meals of His Most Sacred 
Majesty. At Versailles, too, one might, like Burke, 
mingle in the gayly attired throngs that moved through 
the long corridors and the vast halls of the palace. The 
court doubtless was, as an English lady assured Young, 
"amazingly splendid," and assuredly one of the most 
memorable sights of Etirope. 

V 

What remained to be seen in France besides Paris 
and its environs was, in the opinion of most tourists, of 
relatively small importance. Whoever made the grand 
tour set out sooner or later for Italy and followed the 
traditional routes. Yet the journey to Italy compelled 
even the most indifferent traveler to see, at least in passing, 
more than one notable provincial city. Tourists really 
bent upon getting an intelligent familiarity with the 
country supplemented this conventional journey by 
various pilgrimages in the great region west of the Rhone 
and south of the Seine. With the improvement in ac- 
commodations at the inns and the bettering of the means 
of travel, a tourist could shape his course through France 
very much as he pleased, though we need hardly re- 
mark that his curiosity did not lead him very often to 
places of minor importance that lay off the main routes. 
It is, indeed, rather amusing to see with what haste the 
average traveler, after a stay in Paris, took his flight for 
the South. His route commonly led him down the valley 
of the Rhone, partly by carriage and partly by boat, on 
the direct way to Italy. 

Contemporary guide-books supply the details: "Those 
who intend," says Nugent, "to travel from Paris to Italy 
must set out for Lyons, to which city there are three 
different routes, viz., two post-roads, and a third used by 
the diligence. Again there are four different routes from 
Lyons to Italy ; the first and pleasantest, but longest about, 

238 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

is by Marseilles and Toulon, at either of which places there 
are daily opportunities of vessels going to Genoa; but if 
you don't like the sea, you may proceed by the post-route 
from Aix to Nice, and thence by land to Genoa, or any 
other part of Italy: the second, somewhat shorter, is by 
Geneva and Swisserland; the third, still shorter, is by 
Grenoble and Briangon: and the fourth, as short as the 
preceding, is by Pont Beauvoisin. The diligence from Paris 
to Lyons sets out every other day from the Hotel de Sens, 
near the Ave Maria; the price to each passenger seventy- 
five livres. For your baggage you pay five sols a pound, 
except twenty-five pounds, which you have free. There 
are likewise coaches at the same place that set out every 
third day at four in the morning, and winter and summer 
go through Burgundy. You have also water carriages 
from Paris to Lyons; the fare to each passenger is thirty 
five livres, and you are ten days upon the road."^ "From 
Lyons you may go down as far as Avignon by water; for 
there are boats that descend the Rhone almost every day, 
and move with great expedition on this rapid river." ^ 

The entire valley of the Rhone presented the double at- 
traction of being a part of the ordinary route to Italy and 
of offering a large number of towns full of Roman remains ; 
at Vienne a temple; at Orange an arch and a vast theater; 
at Nimes an exquisite temple and a magnificent amphi- 
theater ; at the Pont du Gard, a stupendous Roman aque- 
duct; at Aries an ancient theater, an amphitheater, and 
many broken survivals of the wealthy Graeco-Roman city. 
And these are but a hint of the riches of this famous 
district. 

Part of the stream of travel setting toward Italy naturally 
tended toward Dijon. This charming old city was popular 
with strangers, being notable for the cheapness of living and 
the courtesy of the inhabitants. As early as 1730 sixteen 
English families were settled there.^ Of high reputation was 
the French spoken at Dijon. "The Gentleman's Guide" 
remarks:^ "Here the French language is spoke with 
greater propriety than at Paris, or any other town in the 

239 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

kingdom, tho' Blois had formcrlj^ that reputation. I do not 
know any town in France preferable to this for the resi- 
dence of any gentleman." 

Lyons, the second city of the kingdom, with a popula- 
tion of about a hundred thousand,* was, as we have seen, 
on the main route to Italy, and thus caught a good many 
tourists as they went through. Gray incidentally remarks 
in one of his letters that while he was there "near thirty" 
English were then passing through L3'-ons "on their way to, 
Italy and the South." "^ Here, too, Evelyn a century earlier 
had met at the Golden Lion "divers of his acquaintance, 
who, coming from Paris, were designed for Italy." ^ 

Dr. Moore counted Lyons the most magnificent town 
in France, after Paris. Its situation brought commerce, 
wealth, and population. The inns were famous for their 
la\'ish display of plate, and they were thronged during the 
tourist season by Englishmen on their way to or from Italy. 
The great merchants lived on a grand scale and impressed 
strangers ^^'ith their profusion. Mrs. Piozzi says: "Such 
was the hospitality I have here been witness to, and such 
the luxury of the Lyonnois at table, that I counted thirty- 
six dishes where we dined and twenty-four where we 
supped. Every thing was served up in silver in both 
places." ^ 

But Lyons had the unkempt appearance so common in 
French provincial towns in the eighteenth century. Criti- 
cal strangers noted "the extreme narrowness of the streets, 
which are badly paved and ever dirty; and the villanous 
ragged paper wdndows, wdth which every house (except 
those of the richest merchants) is so abominably defaced."^ 

At Lyons one had the choice of continuing down the 
Rhone or of turning to the east for the journey over the 
Alps. If one had no time to spare, the journey was unin- 
terrupted until the mountains were safely scaled. But 
more leisurely tourists paused a little to see Grenoble and 
the Grande Chartreuse, and perhaps spent a few days or 
weeks at Chamb^ry. 

Grenoble, situated on the Isere and encircled by snow- 

240 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

capped mountains, with the crest of Mont Blanc filling the 
horizon to the east, saw a good number of English tourists 
every year on their way to or from Italy. 

Many English tourists went up from Grenoble to the 
Grande Chartreuse, thirteen miles distant, — one of the 
most interesting specimens in France of a great monastery. 
There was little of the medieval that greeted the eight- 
eenth-century visitor to the Grande Chartreuse, for it had 
eight times been rebuilt after fires. The poet Gray visited 
it twice while on his long tour, once with Walpole and once 
alone on the return journey, and was profoundly impressed 
by the romantic surroundings. The narrow road up the 
mountain gorge was counted dangerous and struck terror 
to the heart of the traveler.^ As an illustration of the chang- 
ing attitude toward wild scenery it is very suggestive to 
contrast Gray's well-known description of the monastery 
and its situation with the account by Clcnchc, who many 
years before had visited "this miserable place." Clenche 
found it "Scituate in the most solitary place that can be 
found in the world, amongst horrid mountains, worse than 
the Alpes, and the way from Chambdry, hewn out of the 
side of rocks in steps, with continual precipices, a roaring 
torrent in the bottom, and through the melancholy shade 
of pines and fir-trees; the house large, but far from being 
beautiful or regular. ... A stranger that is so foolishly 
curious as to come here is lodged for a night ; and a father, 
whose particular business it is, entertains him, and in the 
morning he records himself in a book at his going away." ^ 

But it is time to return to the tourist making his way 
down the Rhone. A little below Lyons was Vienne. The 
town was dingy and dismal, as it is to-day, but its an- 
tiquity was obvious to the most careless eye, and to the 
archaeologist it was a place of rare interest. 

If the tourist descended the Rhone by boat, as he was 
commonly advised to do, he was in some trepidation until 
he had safely passed the Pont Saint-Esprit, where the river 
runs "with considerable rapidity." ' 

The next point of interest was Orange, a few miles to the 

241 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

east of the Rhone. The great glory of Orange, in the eye of 
the modem tourist, is the Roman theater. But an EngHsh- 
man like Clenche passes it by wnthout mention, and merely 
notes Orange as "a little town very ancient, as the mines of 
the antiquities do show. ' ' * Breval was three times at Orange, 
the last time in 1 730. He remarks upon the theater: "The 
Area within is now a kind of Suburb to Orange, fill'd with 
poor and mean tenements like the Amphitheatres of Nimes 
and Aries." ^ On his last xnsit he found the famous trium- 
phal arch cleared of much of the accumulated rubbish. Up 
to 1 72 1 two-thirds of it had been buried in the soil. 

A little farther south lay Avignon, facing the castle- 
crowned heights of Villcncuve. Ancient Av-ignon, with 
its encircling crenellated walls, and the palace of the 
Popes — grim and mighty — rising above the Rhone and 
the broken arches of the medieval bridge, was singularly 
picturesque. In the Franciscan church was the tomb of 
Petrarch's Laura. Outside the town walls in every direc- 
tion stretched \aneyards alternating with groves of olives 
and oranges and lemons. 

A\^gnon commonly served as a stopping place for tour- 
ists on their way to or from Italy. Trade was small, but 
there were many wealthy inhabitants and many social 
attractions.' We note ^\'ith interest that Avignon was 
"the residence of a vast number of handsome Englisli gen- 
tlemen, who were obliged to fly their country with the 
unfortunate chevalier in 1745."* "There are some very 
good sort of English there," writes the Dowager Countess 
of Carlisle to Sclwjm in 1779.^ The life was not exciting 
but very wholesome for jaded tourists. People kept early 
hours and unless bent upon evil found little in their sur- 
roundings to lead them astray. 

From Avignon travelers commonly made a little detour 
to the southwest for the sake of seeing Nimes and the noble 
Roman aqueduct that spans the Gard. The ancient build- 
ings at Nimes — the exquisite temple known as the Maison 
Carrie,* the Roman baths, and the magnificent Roman 
amphitheater — were highly esteemed by tourists, who 

242 



SOUTH SIDE OF THE ROMAN TRIUMPHAL ARCH AT 
ORANGE, DEDICATED TO THE P:MPER0R TIBERIUS 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

counted the place "a second Rome." ' Arthur Young 
thought the temple to be "beyond comparison the most 
light, elegant, and pleasing building "* he had ever seen. 
Throughout the easy-going eighteenth century the amphi- 
theater here, as at Aries, was half-h>uried in the accumu- 
lations of soil. The area was "filled up . . . with little 
houses of tradesmen," ^ and on the exterior shabby tene- 
ments made a squalid fringe.* Not until after the Revolu- 
tion was the structure restored to something like its orig- 
inal state. But although old buildings were somewhat 
neglected by the authorities, the tourist business, as Smol- 
lett's account shows, was sufficiently active. "I had no 
sooner alighted at the inn than I was presented with a 
pamphlet, containing an account of Nismcs and its an- 
tiquities, which every stranger buys. There are persons, 
too, who attend in order to show the town, and you will 
always be accosted by some shabby antiquarian, who pre- 
sents you with medals for sale, assuring you that they are 
genuine antiques, and were dug out of the Roman temple 
and baths. All these fellows are cheats; and they have 
often laid under contribution raw English travellers, who 
had more money than discretion." ^ 

After Nimes the next main halting-place was Aries. At 
Aries Brcval notes that the amphitheater "is crowded, to 
the scandal of the Magistrates, with beggarly tenements, 
that compose a sort of dirty little Town, and quite obstruct 
the View of one of the most magnificent Fabricks of the 
kind that is to be met with any where out of Italy." He 
goes on to speak of "the diffictdty and expence of clearing 
away such immense heaps of rubbish, a charge few cities 
could or would at this time be at, merely to preserve an 
antiquity of no manner of use to the publick." ' There can 
be little question that the eighteenth-century tourist far 
less keenly appreciated the classical, and particularly the 
medieval, remains at Aries than does the educated tourist of 
our day. Saint-Trophime, with its exquisite cloister, stirred 
no enthusiasm in minds that obstinately regarded all 
medieval architecture as barbarous. 

243 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

Aix in Provence, easily reached by the tourist on the 
way from Aries to Marseilles, was extremely popular with 
the English. The modern tourist finds much of the town 
rather dingy and dull, but, according to eighteenth-century 
standards, it was handsomely built, adorned with "spa- 
cious squares and beautiful fountains," ^ and in attractive- 
ness was counted inferior only to Paris. Says "The Gen- 
tleman's Guide":' "This town will perhaps please you 
better than any you have yet seen in France, tho' deficient 
in amusements, except when the parliament is setting: 
in winter it is extremely pleasant." 

Those who preferred to coast along the Riviera to Italy 
rather than cross the mountains found it convenient to 
embark at Marseilles, then a prosperous commercial city 
of about a hundred thousand inhabitants.^ One of the 
most ancient cities in Europe, Marseilles nevertheless 
offered singularly little in the way of antiquity to attract 
the tourist, and practically nothing noteworthy of any 
other period. But social life was agreeable there and some- 
times tempted travelers to make a considerable stay,* 
even beyond the time necessarily spent in the city while 
arranging to go elsewhere. 

Nearly forty miles southeast of Marseilles lay Toulon, a 
flourishing seaport which many tourists preferred to INIar- 
seilles as a point of departure for Italy. Eight miles east 
of Toulon, Hycres attracted tourists who sought a mild 
climate. One day, saj^s Arthur Young, his "landlord 
worried" him "with a list of the English that pass the 
winter at Hyeres." ^ 

As for other now popular resorts, they had not yet begim 
to attract the routine tourist. Cannes was only an old 
coast town in the eighteenth century, though Smollett's 
sharp eyes detected the possibilities that have made it the 
most exclusive, as well as the most expensive, watering- 
place of the Riviera. 

The Ri\'iera was, indeed, only beginning to be appreciated 
in the middle of the eighteenth century. Dr. Thomas Lino- 
lett in 1 7 1 4 had discovered the attractions of Nice, which 

244 



ROMAN TEMPIJ-:, THE MAISON CARRKK AT MMES 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

was not yet a French possession, and from that time on it 
became increasingly popular as a health resort for the 
"hectic English" on their way to or from Italy. Smollett 
passed about a year and a half in the place, leaving there in 
May, 1765. He recorded his characteristic impressions 
and confessed that the only friendships he made at Nice 
were with strangers sojourning like himself for a season. 
Dupaty notes in 1785 that "the country houses of the 
environs of Nice are peopled with EngHsh, with French, 
with Germans; each of them is a colony." ^ James Edward 
Smith, who was at Nice somewhat later, was "disgusted 
with the gross flattery paid here to strangers, and to the 
English in particular. The whole neighborhood has the 
air of an English watering-place." " 

Nice was popular, but judged by the scale of modem re- 
sorts, it was a small affair. Arthur Young, who visited the 
town in 1789, tells us that "the place is flourishing; owing 
very much to the resort of foreigners, principally English, 
who pass the winter here, for the benefit and pleasure of the 
climate." And in proof of its poptilarity he goes on to say : 
"Last winter there were fifty-seven EngHsh and nine 
French; this winter they think it will be nine English and 
fifty-seven French." ^ 

A few miles east of Nice lay Monaco, where in 1785 
Dupaty noted "two or three streets upon precipitous rocks; 
eight hundred wretches dying of hunger; a tumble-down 
castle ; a battallion of French troops." " But of the throngs 
of strangers who in our day have made the neighboring 
Monte Carlo the most famous center of gambling in the 
world there was no sign in the eighteenth century. 

VI 

The ordinary tour from Calais through Paris to the Alps 
or the Mediterranean was no small undertaking, and it 
demanded as great an outlay of money and time as many 
travelers could afford. They therefore went, as we have 
seen, through to Italy by way of Paris and Lyons, ignoring 

245 

\ 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

everything in France outside a few notable cities. A typical 
case is Dr. John Moore, who saw little besides Paris, Lyons, 
and Strassbnrg.^ But less hurried travelers, particularly if 
not bent upon going to Italy, endeavored to see some other 
portions of France. Babeau points out that already in 1 6 7 2 , 
Le Sieur de Saint-Maurice had printed a guide for the use 
of strangers traveling in France. In this book he describes 
the principal routes that the Germans, the English, and the 
Hollanders followed in going to Paris. Then he outlines 
"le grand et le petit tour de France" — the grand tour 
by Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Paris; the 
little tour from Paris to Tours and Poitiers. ^ These plans 
for a tour remained popular throughout the eighteenth 
century, and were followed with manifold variation by Eng- 
lish travelers. If they returned from Italy through France, 
they were likely to vary their course by coming up through 
the country to the west of the Rhone. 

In Italy, the geographical situation of Rol5ie and Naples 
in a sense compelled a tour following one of two or three 
routes. But France in the eighteenth centiuy was covered 
with a network of well-kept post-roads leading from Paris 
to the chief seaports of the north and the south and to the 
larger cities of the provinces. Yet until the advent of the 
motor-car, which has made the remotest comers of France 
easily accessible, luxtuious tourists, even within recent 
years, showed some disinclination to venture far from well- 
known centers. To enimierate all the places in France 
which are now counted as of exceptional interest, but in the 
eighteenth century were commonly neglected, would be an 
endless task. Some regions, indeed, as, for example, La 
Vendue, were ill provided with roads, but the lack did not 
greatly disturb the average tourist, who had no desire what- 
ever to traverse La Vendee. Even yet it is by no means an 
ordinary tourist center. But as an indication of the change 
in attitude since the eighteenth centiury, we may comment 
upon a few districts of another type. 

A good representative of average eighteenth-century 
taste is Nugent, who omits from his "Grand Tour" what- 

246 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

ever is not likely to serve the needs of ordinary tourists. 
For example, he makes no mention of Cluny, Seez, Fou- 
geres, Vichy, Biarritz, Pau, LePuy, Bourg (with the won- 
derful church of Brou), P6rigueux, Angouleme, and scores 
of other places. Too much should not be made of mere 
omission from a guide-book of moderate size, but some 
places at least in this list would find mention in the briefest 
of modem guides. No portion of France to-day is more 
admired than the valley of the Loire, where, among other 
attractions, are the chateaux of Azay le Rideau and Chen- 
onceaux, the fascinating abbey of Fontevrault, and the 
richly restored ^ch^teau of Langeais. But Nugent passes 
them all by in his "Grand Tour" without a word. To 
Clenche, Amboise was nothing but "a wretched little wall'd 
town" with an "old ruinous castle." ^ Blois had "nothing 
good in it but its scituation." ^ Breval in his day made the 
round of the chateaux in the valley of the Loire, but he 
omits all mention of Azay-le-Rideau, Chenonceaux, and 
the historic ruins of Loches. 

But we must not imagine that eighteenth-century tourists 
failed to get keen satisfaction from a good number of the 
regions they visited. In their fashion they were fond of the 
valley of the Loire. The ancient city of Tours attracted 
many English, some of whom constantly resided there. 
"No city in France," says Evelyn, "exceeds it in beauty 
or delight." ^ He spent nineteen weeks in the place; and 
eighteenth-century tourists felt very much at home there. 
The French spoken at Tours was regarded as exceptionally 
good, and the ways of the people agreeable. As for Blois, 
"this," says Nugent, "is one of the pleasantest cities^in 
France , . . Here the French tongue is spoken in its 
greatest purity." ^ But the beautiful chateau was much 
neglected in the eighteenth century, and so badly out of 
repair that few tourists found- it worthy of praise. 

Further up the Loire, Orleans, with its historic memo- 
ries, its handsome streets, its interesting architecture, its 
quiet and beautiful environs with their wealth of plain and 
forest, satisfied the taste of the eighteenth century and . 

247 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

attracted a good share of English tourists. " 'Tis now," 
says Nugent, "one of the largest and pleasantest cities in 
France. . . . The streets are neat and broad, and the 
houses in general are fair and beautiful, though ancient." ^ 

West of the Rhone Valley and south of the Loire are some 
of the most interesting towns in France, most of which, 
however, received little or no intelligent attention from 
eighteenth-century tourists. As a single instance, take 
Carcassonne, perhaps the most picturesque example in 
France of the fortified towns of the Middle Ages. But 
Breval devotes twenty lines to Carcassonne without special 
mention of the medieval fortifications, merely observing 
that "it has a strong modern castle which commands it." ^ 
Clenche's remarks are distinctly contemptuous. Carcas- 
sonne, says he, "is in two parts, both distinctly Wall'd, 
call'd the citty and the town, but neither of them worth 
notice, nor yet the castle; the country here is stony and 
barren, and about this town are the first olive-trees I have 
found." 3 

The modern tourist will, however, be interested to learn 
that Breval sufficiently appreciated the exquisite church of 
Brou to count it "as well with respect to its architecture 
as to the monuments . . . one of the noblest modem Pieces 
in the South of France." * 

Naturally enough, the wild and beautiful valleys that 
cut into the northern slopes of the Pyrenees were neglected 
by tourists, for here, as elsewhere, the charm of the moun- 
tains was hardly felt. Throughout Europe the change in 
taste since 1750 has opened scores and even hundreds of 
resorts in the mountains and along the seashore that to 
eighteenth-century tourists seemed to offer nothing. 

We can by no means consider all the provincial towns of 
France that were visited by curious and active tourists. 
We must remember that individual Englishmen often hid 
themselves in unfrequented corners of the country. But 
with few exceptions the towns along the main routes ab- 
sorbed the interest of sight-seers. 

Such a tour was Sterne's in 1762. "On Monday the 

248 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

nineteenth of July, as near as can be made out, the Sternes 
began the long and expensive journey to Toulouse by way 
of Lyons, Avignon, and Montpellier, travelling by post 
most of the way, as was Sterne's custom. Their chaise, 
which was narrow and cramped, despite the care for Lydia's 
feet, they piled with baggage, before and aft, mountains 
high. For such a load were necessary at least four horses 
with two postillions, which would be exchanged for fresh 
ones at the successive stages. As the posts were then 
farmed out by the king, the exactions were most oppres- 
sive, especially at royal posts like Lyons, where one paid 
double. . . . Sterne chose the longest route to Toulouse 
with the manifest intent of sight-seeing. To this end he 
took along, as any one may see, the ' Nouveau Voyage en 
France,' by Piganiol de la Force, the Baedeker of the 
period, who mapped out all the post-roads, and described 
all the things which a traveler should observe by the way 
and at the halting-places." ^ 

Sterne and his family spent more than a year at Toulouse, 
and their choice is not surprising. Those who wished to 
make a prolonged stay in France found the old historic 
city full of interesting survivals of medieval and Renais- 
sance architecture, and remarkably inexpensive. "The 
Gentleman's Guide" unreservedly says: "I know no 
town in France where an Englishman may learn the polite 
arts and sciences at so easy a rate, or live cheaper, or more 
to his satisfaction, on a small income." 2 Lady Knight 
lived a considerable time at Toulouse, and she writes in 
1776: "Most of the Irish, Scotch, and a few EngHsh that 
are here game high, but" there is a great deal of very good 
company." ^ 

But here as elsewhere there were some drawbacks. 
Even after the French Revolution we are told: "Toulouse 
is large and well-bmlt, but horribly filthy. It contains 
67,000 inhabitants, and has much the appearance of pros- 
perity. How the people of this place, and of some others in 
the South of France, can tolerate the detestable stench of 
their own nuisances, is marvellous." ^ 

249 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

Easily accessible to tourists on the way to or from Italy, 
Montpellier offered special attractions to Englishmen, 
many of whom passed a few days or weeks in the town. 
Says Nugent, "Vast numbers of consumptive people flock 
hither from all parts of Europe, especially from England, to 
breathe this air, which is said to have a good effect upon 
bodies of a moist and phlegmatic temperament." ^ Even 
the irascible Smollett, who was there shortly before Sterne, 
has a good word for the place, which was noted for its 
sociability and the beauty of the women. The day after 
Smollett's party arrived, "we were visited," says he, "by 
the English residing in the place, who always pay this mark 
of respect to new comers. They consist of four or five fami- 
lies, among whom I could pass the winter very agreeably, 
if the state of my health and other reasons did not call me 
away." ^ Sterne found the English families living in 
"houses or apartments near one another for free inter- 
course"; ^ and he remained several months. 

In general, as we see, Montpellier suited even captious 
English tourists. But the author of "The Gentleman's 
Guide" complains: "This town has been long famous for 
(what I, and many of my countrymen sadly experienced 
it does not in the least degree possess) a salubrious air and 
skilful physicians." * 

We might fill many pages with specimen routes that 
were followed by well-known tourists, but of course nobody 
dreamt of going everywhere. One city deserves a word of 
mention. Rheims, with its wonderful cathedral, its an- 
cient abbey of Saint-Remi, its Roman triiunphal arch, its 
well-built houses, and, moreover, its easy accessibility, drew 
a good number of tourists on their way through northern 
France to Italy. Gray writes in 1739 to Aston: "On 
Monday next we set out for Rheims (where we expect to 
be very dull) there to stay a Month or two, then we cross 
Burgundy and Dauphiny, and so go to Avignon, Aix, 
Marseilles, etc." ^ 

Last of all, we may note the route from Paris to Bordeaux 
and thence to Bayonne and Madrid. "This," says Nugent, 

250 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

"is one of the longest, most curious, and most convenient 
tours a traveller can take thro' France; being a journey of 
about one hundred and seventy leagues, thro' a fruitful, 
populous country, where the roads are very good, and you 
meet with the best of accommodation in the public inns. 
It is the road generally used by those who go from Paris to 
Madrid." ^ 

The post-route proceeded from Paris through Orleans, 
Blois, Amboise, Tours, Poitiers, and thence through unim- 
portant towns to Bordeaux. The stage-coach followed 
much the same route (with the omission of Tours) as far as 
Poitiers. From here it went through Saintes to Blaye. 
From Blaye a vessel carried passengers up the Garonne to 
Bordeaux. Tourists going on to Bayonne went by way of 
Belin, Belloc, and Saint- Vincent.^ 

Tourists bound for Spain could also proceed by coach 
from Bordeaux to Dax and thence by private carriage or by 
water to Bayonne. The road to Madrid passed through 
Saint-Jean de Luz, Iran, and Burgos.^ This route from 
Paris to Madrid was "much the shortest way"; but the 
longer route through Languedoc to Narbonne by Limoges, 
Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Perpignan, or by Lyons and 
Lower Languedoc through Nimes and Montpellier, was by 
far the pleasanter.^ 

To some of these places we have already given a word of 
comment. We can now pause for a mere glimpse of Poi- 
tiers and Bordeaux. Poitiers, the capital of the old prov- 
ince of Poitou, was frequently included in the grand tour 
of France, and was visited on the way to or from Bordeaux. 
In mere area Poitiers was surpassed only by Paris, but, as 
Nugent remarks, "within the compass of the walls there 
are a great many gardens, meadows, and corn-fields." ^ 
With its walls and towers and its multitude of ancient 
churches and monasteries, the city constantly reminded the 
tourist of the Middle Ages, as it does to-day. But there 
was not much doing at Poitiers, and as a resort it was far 
less poptilar than Dijon or Tours or Aix. 

Bordeaux, the great Atlantic seaport of the south of 

251 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

France, with its beautiful situation, its spacious harbor 
filled with ships from all the seas, with its picturesque 
streets, its ancient twin-towered cathedral, and its mani- 
fold public institutions, had been famous for hundreds of 
years and naturally received its share of the stream of 
travel. Tourists found the older streets within the fortifi- 
cations too narrow and ill-built, but they were enthusiastic 
over the magnificence of the buildings in the newer quar- 
ters. As is the case to-day, one had to make a special 
effort to get to Bordeaux, but few cities in France gave 
more satisfaction to those who made the long journey. 

VII 

One who ventured to travel in Spain was rather an ex- 
plorer than an ordinary tourist. There were, indeed, 
numerous English and French and Dutch merchants at the 
chief Spanish seaports, and there were a few travelers in 
Spain and even in Portugal ; * but the extreme difficulty of 
Spanish travel prevented more than an occasional ven- 
turesome sight-seer from attempting to extend his tour to 
the Iberian Peninsula. Even in the middle of the eighteenth 
century one had to submit to inconveniences hardly to be 
paralleled to-day in the remoter portions of South America. 
As late as 1776, Sherlock had an interview with Voltaire in 
which Spain was mentioned. The octogenarian sage re- 
marked: "It is a country of which we know no more than 
of the most savage parts of Africa, and it is not worth the 
trouble of being known. If a man would travel there, he 
must carry his bed, etc. When he comes into a town, he 
must go into one street to buy a bottle of wine, a piece of 
a mule in another, he finds a table in a third, and he sups. 
A French nobleman was passing through Pampeluna: he 
sent out for a spit; there was only one in the town, and 
that was borrowed for a wedding." ^ 

Voltaire's lively picture must not be taken to represent 
the whole of Spain. "For some time back," says Botur- 
goanne, "very tolerable inns are to be met with in Spain. 

252 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

On the roads along which the coaches run, some are estab- 
lished, provided with beds, linen, and even plate; and the 
innkeepers are allowed to keep eatables for travellers. Be- 
sides, on this road there are others which are pretty good, 
particularly in principal towns; but every where else to the 
present day one must expect inns entirely destitute of con- 
veniences, and so disgusting, in short, as not to falsify the 
accounts of travellers. ... But who will take a trip to 
Spain merely to behold, here fine roads traversing arid 
plains, as is the case in the two Castilles; there dreadful 
roads in countries blest with fertility and industry, as 
along the coasts of the kingdoms of Valentia and ckta- 
lonia; to meet with towns deserted and in ruins, a court 
not abounding with delights, few monuments, the arts but 
in their cradle, a burning climate and the Inquisition?" » 
^ The ordinary directions to tourists are sufficiently sugges- 
tive of the state of Spanish civilization: "To travel com- 
modiously in Spain, a man should have a good constitution, 
two good servants, letters of credit for the principal cities,' 
and a proper introduction to the best families, both of the 
native inhabitants and of strangers settled in the country: 
the language will be easily acquired." 

For his journey the tourist was advised to purchase three 
strong mules. "In his baggage he should have sheets, a 
mattress, a blanket, and a quilt, a table-cloth, knives, 
forks, and spoons, with a copper vessel sufficiently capa- 
cious to boil his meat. This should be furnished with a 
cover and a lock. Each of his servants should have a gun, 
slung by the side of his mule." 2 

"To travel as an economist in Spain, a man must be con- 
tented to take his chance for conveyance, and either go by 
the post wherever it is established, or join with officers 
going to their various stations; to hire a coach, or quietly 
resign himself to a calash, a calasine, a horse, a mule, or a 
borrico. These last are the most convenient for the purpose 
of crossing the country, or of wandering among the moun- 
tains. If he is to traverse any district infested by banditti, 
it will be safe for him to go by the common carriers; in 

253 



TOUR OF FRANCE AND SPAIN 

which case he will be mounted on a good mule, and take 
the place which would have been occupied by some bale of 
goods." ^ 

The tourist was advised to begin his Spanish trip in 
autumn, in order to avoid the burning heat of summer. 
His route as commonly outlined was singularly like the 
ordinary tourist round to-day, and included at the outset 
Bayonne, Burgos, Valladolid, Segovia, Madrid. In the 
cotirse of the winter he was to see Toledo, Cordova, Seville, 
Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malaga, Granada, Carthagena, Murcia, 
Alicante, Valencia, Barcelona. Touring in the spring to the 
west he could go to Saragossa, Aranjuez, Salamanca, and 
Leon, seeing various places in "Galicia, the Asturias, and 
the provinces of Biscay." This was the plan followed by 
Joseph Townsend, the geologist, in 1786, 1787.^ 

But the tour in Spain was at best a very modified form 
of pleasure. The roads were neglected and often im- 
passable except on horseback or muleback, the carriages 
primitive, the inns ill-kept and filthy, the cities dilapidated 
and sadly lacking in the most ordinary sanitation. In 
the latter half of the eighteenth century improvement was 
noticeable, particularly in the roads and the means of 
public conveyance,' but even down to our own day a trav- 
eler has had only to deviate a little from the beaten track 
to encounter conditions that he can hardly believe possible 
in Europe. 

It is, then, needless for our purpose to follow the few 
eighteenth-century travelers who ventured into Spain. 
Our business is with the average tourist who kept to the 
ordinary routes. 



254 



CHAPTER XI 

SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

Most people who flock to Switzerland as to a summer 
paradise fail to consider how recently it has been included 
as an essential part of an extended European tour; for, 
with the exception of a half-dozen interesting cities, Switzer- 
land had little to offer the eighteenth-century tourist be- 
sides lakes, waterfalls, mountains, and glaciers. Pro- 
tected behind its mountain barriers, Switzerland led a 
tranquil and moderately prosperous existence. In a peculiar 
sense it was isolated from the rest of Europe and played 
small part in the councils of the great powers. Tourists 
commonly devoted little time to Switzerland, and their atti- 
tude was that of the world in general. As is well known, the 
taste of travelers before the middle of the eighteenth century 
did not much incline toward rough and precipitous scenery,^ 
but toward the softer beauties of the verdant plain, the 
quiet lake, and the mossy dell. A grazing flock of sheep, a 
piping shepherd, an ivy-grown ruin, presented a picture 
that seemed ideal. Poets now and then bestowed perfunc- 
tory descriptive epithets upon mountains, but in general 
sought more inviting themes. As for the English tourists 
of the first half of the eighteenth century, trained as they 
were to admire debased neo-classic architecture and artifi- 
cial ruins and cascades, and trees trimmed into the shape 
of peacocks and birds of paradise, they were unlikely to go 
far out of their way for the sake of viewing the rugged peaks 
and the frightful chasms of the Alps,^ but they hastened on 
to the cities in which they found delight. The ecstasies of 
Ruskin over the beauty and grandeur of mountain scenery 
would have been intelligible to few of the contemporaries of 
Addison and Swift and Pope.^ The poet Gray was, indeed, 

255 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

one of the early admirers of rough mountain scenery, and 
this, too, notwithstanding his timid disposition. But in 
accord with eighteenth-century conventions tourists in the 
presence of mountains ordinarily exhibited terror, or at all 
events showed no liking for them. Mountains'were gloomy, 
frowning, oppressive, and a disfigurement of the landscape. 
The seventeenth-century Misson finds it "matter enough of 
astonishment, that any one should venture himself among 
the cliffs and precipices of such dismal mountains." ^ This 
feeling was centuries old and was first overcome in the 
eighteenth century itself. At a safe distance a traveler 
might now and then appreciate even a mountain. Misson 
himself remarks: "There cannot be a more pleasant road 
than that between Geneva and Lausanne. . . . We rarely 
lost sight of the lake ; and sometimes on the other side piles 
of lofty and forked mountains, always glittering with im- 
memorial snow, which gives to the prospect a very pleasing 
variety." ^ 

His contemporary. Dr. Northleigh, was not so courageous : 
"We were no sooner passed the bridge of Pontbeauvoisin, 
but we were sensible of the difference of the country; for 
whereas we had left behind us the fertile plains of Dau- 
phiny, the other side of the banks of the same river repre- 
sented to our view the frightful Alps, the precipices whereof 
would have been more dreadful to us, had not the many 
vineyards we found on the first ascent taken off a great part 
of the horror we had conceived at the first sight of them." ^ 

Even late in the eighteenth century the dread of the 
mountains survived: "Far off lay the mountains of Switz- 
erland, forming a most awful and tremendous amphi- 
theatre. When first I turned my glass upon them, if I may 
so express myself, and brought their terrors closer to my 
eye, I started with affright! My friend the curate perceiv- 
ing my amazement, said to me. Ah! Monsieur I' Anglais, 
vous voyez Id de belles horreurs! And in fact they were so. 
. . . Perhaps on approaching, and having them contin- 
ually in view, they would not appear so dreadful as at first ; 
but even yet at so great a distance, I could not behold them 

256 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

through a glass without terror; and even was pleased that 
I was distant from them." ^ 

In general, the estimate of scenery is that of Keysler, 
in commenting on the road from Lucca to Pistoia: "The 
first five miles are over a most charming plain. . . . 
There cannot be a finer scene than the plain country 
hereabouts." ^ Entirely in harmony is Bromley's ad- 
miration for the plain of Lombardy: "I never travelled 
a more pleasant road than this thro' Lombardy from 
Milan hither, the country all flat and plain, and exceeding 
rich." 3 

That the ordinary English tourist had small admira- 
tion for the Alps cannot, then, be especially counted 
against him. He was but conforming to the spirit of his 
age, which, with Pope, felt that "the proper study of 
mankind is man." Moreover, as Palgrave well remarks: 
"There was nothing of charm, no romance, in the pain- 
fulness with which mountain regions were traversed two 
hundred years since and later; nor could the discomforts 
of the road attune a traveller's mind to the contempla- 
tion of the sublime. Hence Alpine scenery, peaks and 
passes, left Addison with no feeling but of horror and 
repugnance, and only wakened even Gray himself to a 
dawning sense of their latent poetry." ^ Accordingly, 
until the eighteenth century was far spent, the Alps, 
except as they could be viewed from a distance, were 
to most Englishmen an entirely undiscovered country.^ 
Few tourists, in fact, wotdd have known what to do with 
their time if they had gone to the mountains. They hardly 
imagined that rational men would climb a mountain 
unless compelled to do so. Any one foolish enough to 
risk his life in scaling a difficult peak would have run the 
further risk of having his sanity called in question by stay- 
at-home people.^ 

Moreover, even if tourists had cared to visit the moun- 
tains, they would have had to put up with the roughest 
accommodations and to fare like the peasants. Tourist 
hotels in places like Zermatt or the Rhone Glacier, now 

257 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

among the most popular resorts in Switzerland, were 
not dreamed of. At Zermatt, indeed, there was no hotel 
until 1839.* Coxe records at the Grimsel Pass on a day 
in August: "Last night I lay in the hayloft, without any 
covering : I declare my blood has scarcely recovered its cir- 
culation." 2 On the Col di Tenda, as late as 1792, we are 
told: "The inn here is a crazy hovel, containing scarcely 
one whole window, and no sitting room, except that which 
serves in common for postillions, porters, gentlemen, 
poultry, and hogs." ' Even as late as 1847 those who 
crossed the Simplon were warned in a popular guide-book: 
"This village (Simplon) is the most miserable and most 
wretched cluster of wretched hovels to be met with be- 
tween Ostend and Naples. The inn (post-house) is dear 
and dirty; damp sheets, hard bread, hard water, hard 
old hens, and of course hard eggs; this is what the Red 
Mask* calls 'good accommodation.'"''^ 

Most of the mountain inns ^ remained bad notwith- 
standing the constantly increasing stream of travel into 
Italy. But at least a part of the insufficient accommo- 
dation Vv'as due to the irregularity of the arrival of guests. 
"At one of the inns," says Sharp, "I asked the servant 
maid if they were not often a long time without seeing 
company? 'Yes,' said she, 'sometimes, in the winter, 
we are three or four days without seeing a soul, and then 
they come in such crowds that we can hardly provide 
beds for them.'"' Moreover, the charges were often 
extortionate. Keysler advises the traveler about to 
cross Mont Cenis: "It is the more necessary here to in- 
clude lodging and entertainment, as by that means the 
extravagant impositions of the inn-keepers are prevented, 
as the postilions know the prices of wines, and all kinds 
of eatables." ^ 

Naturally enough, then, in view of all these obstacles, 
the account of eighteenth-century mountaineering for 
pleasure in Switzerland does not make a long story. 
During the greater part of the century tourists on their 
way to or from Italy regarded the high mountains as 

258 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

something to be avoided if possible, and in crossing the 
Alps they did so with all expedition. Timid travelers did 
not venture them at all, but coasted along the Riviera 
from Marseilles or Toulon to Genoa and thence to Spezia 
or Leghorn. 

In the seventeenth century the occasional tourists 
who visited Switzerland kept for the most part to the 
towns, and this continued to be the rule until the last 
quarter of the eighteenth century. Gilbert Burnet in 
1686 wrote interestingly of the cities and of the coun- 
try as a whole,^ but he had little to say of the districts 
that most attract the modern tourist. 

The eighteenth-century return to nature brought with 
it a new insight into the beauty of wild mountain scenery. 
Albrecht von Haller's poem on "The Alps" was a reve- 
lation to the world and a forerunner of all the nineteenth- 
century poetic rapture over mountains. Yet for three 
quarters of a century after Burnet wrote, Switzerland 
occupied little of the time of tourists except as they saw 
it incidentally on their way to other parts of Europe. 
In the four volumes of Nugent 's "Grand Tour" — the 
successor of Misson's famous book — very few pages 
are devoted to Switzerland, though Nugent professes 
to give a complete guide to all that is best worth seeing 
on the Continent. 

A generation later than Nugent's book, Archdeacon 
Coxe's admirable account of Switzerland marks the 
dawn of a new era in Swiss travel. He takes a genuine 
delight in the contemplation of the grandeur of the moun- 
tains, and has the point of view of the modern tourist. 
In traversing the Furca Pass he observes: "I frequently 
quit my party, and either go on before or loiter behind, 
that I may enjoy uninterrupted, and with a sort of mel- 
ancholy pleasure, these sublime exhibitions of Nature 
in her most awful and tremendous forms. "^ Throughout 
his book Coxe shows real appreciation of the scenery of 
the Alps, though his praise is somewhat formal and heavy. 
He is at his best in his account of the Rhine Fall: "A 

259 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

scaffolding is erected in the very spray of this tremendous 
cataract and upon the most sublime point of view; the sea 
of foam rushing down; the continual cloud of spray scat- 
tered to a great distance, and to a considerable height; 
in short the magnificence of the whole scenery far sur- 
passed my most sanguine expectations, and exceeds all 
description." ^ 

In the same spirit of enthusiasm Dr. Moore writes of 
his Swiss tour, "in which a greater variety of sublime and 
interesting objects offer themselves to the contempla- 
tion of the traveller than can be found in any other part 
of the globe of the same extent."^ And later he adds: 
"No country in the world can be more agreeable to travv 
ellers during the summer than Switzerland: For besides 
the commodious roads and comfortable inns, some of 
the most beautiful objects of nature, woods, mountains, 
lakes intermingled with fertile fields, vineyards, and 
scenes of the most perfect cultivation, are here presented 
to the eye in greater variety, and on a larger scale, than 
in any other country." ^ 

In company with the Duke of Hamilton and others. 
Dr. Moore went up on the glaciers by Chamonix, merely 
for the sake of the scenery.^ Commonplace as this ex- 
ploit may now appear, it was of marked significance 
as indicating the changing attitude toward mountains 
before 1780. Englishmen are commonly credited with 
taking in new ideas slowly. But when they really grasp 
a new conception they adopt it very thoroughly. So it 
was with the conquest of Switzerland by the ever-increas- 
ing army of English tourists who came to enjoy the moun- 
tains and not to shudder at them. The closing years 
of the eighteenth century and the opening years of the 
nineteenth witnessed the final triumph over the preju- 
dice against mountain scenery, and, in Leslie Stephen's 
happy phrase, Switzerland became "the playground of 
Europe." ^ 

In 18 18, the serious lack of an English guide-book to 
the country was supplied by Daniel Wall's English ver- 

260 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

sion of Ebel's pioneer work.'under the title, "The Travel- 
ler's Guide through Switzerland "; i and since that day 
the stream of English tourists has been unfailing. 

But although Englishmen, Hke other tourists, avoided 
the mountains, they were often seen in Swiss cities, 
particularly during the second half of the eighteenth 
century. Bern was noted for its social life and its cor- 
diality to strangers, and Geneva enjoyed an exceptional 
reputation as a safe place to send a young man with his 
tutor; while Basel, Zurich, Lucerne, Lausanne, each had 
attractions sufficient to hold the passing tourist for a more 
or less protracted stay.^ The Hfe in these cities was com- 
mended as simple and wholesome. One had excellent 
opportunities for learning French by being received as 
a member of a cultured family, and could easily share in 
the pleasures of a society that lacked the sophistication 
and dangerous allurements of the fashionable assemblies 
of France and Italy. In 1785, social gatherings at Bern, 
we are told, "begin about four or five in the afternoon 
and continue till eight, when the parties usually retire 
to their respective houses." ^ Zurich suffered no wild 
extravagance. As late as 1776, we read: "Among their 
sumptuary laws, the use of a carriage in the town is pro- 
hibited to all sorts of persons except strangers; and it 
is almost inconceivable that, in a place so commercial 
and wealthy, luxury should so Httle prevail." * At Basel 
one could, indeed, keep a coach, but "no citizen or in- 
habitant" was "allowed to have a servant behind his car- 
riage." 5 Similar regulations of one's dress and deportment 
prevailed in many other parts of Switzerland. Games of 
chance in particular were under the ban of the law. 

Along with Bern, Geneva won the special favor of 
English tourists,^ and impressed them with its popula- 
tion of twenty-four thousand inhabitants,— the largest 
in Switzerland. Tourists were advised that they could 
"not choose a more agreeable place of repose, after the 
various toils of a fatiguing voyage"; ^ and this reputation 
continued throughout the eighteenth century. "The 

261 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

goodness of the air, the mildness of the government, and 
the plenty of all things, together with the conversation 
of the inhabitants, who are sprightly and polite, make 
this a most agreeable city to live in; insomuch that it 
is stiled the court of the Alps." ' The inhabitants honored 
Sunday " with the most respectful decorum during the 
hours of divine service; but as soon as that" was "over, 
all the usual amusements" commenced. ^ People of 
wealth and leisure were fond of going for social gather- 
ings a little distance outside the city. The summons 
to return to their homes before it should be too late to 
pass through the gates strikingly indicates the primi- 
tive conditions still surviving late in the eighteenth cen- 
tury. "They generally continue these circles till the 
dusk of the evening and the sound of the drum from 
the ramparts call them to the town; and at that time the 
gates are shut, after which no person can enter or go out, 
the officer of the guard not having the power to open 
them without an order from the Syndics, which is not to 
be obtained but on some great emergency." ^ 

Without question all these cities proved interesting to 
Englishmen. In general, however, as we have observed, 
the eighteenth-century tourist was bent upon visiting 
other countries than Switzerland. The Swiss cities were 
not indispensable to the success of his tour, and he did 
not make his long journey for the sake of seeing moun- 
tains, though in going through the great passes on his way 
to Italy he could not avoid seeing some notable scenery. 
In the lowlands the roads were in many cases excellent; 
in the higher regions of the Alps they left much to be 
desired. Only the Col di Tenda (1778), the Brenner 
(1772), and the Arlberg (1786) were passable for carriages.* 
But such as they were, the routes over the Saint-Gott- 
hard, the Great Saint-Bernard, the Simplon,|Mont Gcnevre, 
Mont Cenis, and other passes were much used, though 
the crossing of the mountains caused most travelers 
some perturbation. 

To traverse these roads, says Keysler, "There is scarce 

262 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

any other way . . . than in post-chaises which will 
hold two persons, with a covering over head, and room for 
two trunks behind : they have but two wheels, and one of 
the two horses runs within the shafts, and bears the 
stress of the burden. . . . The rugged rocks and narrow 
roads, and the short turnings along the mountains, render 
it extremely difficult for four-wheeled carriages to travel 
through Savoy." ^ Where the road was impassable for 
wheeled vehicles, they were taken to pieces and carried 
over on mulcback. The novel experience made a deep 
impression upon travelers. Two or three typical descrip- 
tions will enable us to get the point of view of the earlier 
tourists far better than any comment of our own. The 
first is Evelyn's account of his passage of the Simplon 
in 1646, going over from Italy. 

"The next morning, we mounted again through strange, 
horrid, and fearful crags and tracts, abounding in pine- 
trees, and only inhabited by bears, wolves, and wild 
goats; nor coiild we anywhere see above a pistol-shot 
before us, the horizon being terminated with rocks and 
mountains, whose tops, covered with snow, seemed to 
touch the skies, and in many places pierced the clouds. 
Some of these vast mountains were but one entire stone, 
betwixt whose clefts now and then precipitated great 
cataracts of melted snow, and other waters, which made 
a terrible roaring, echoing from the rocks and cavities; 
and these waters in some places breaking in the fall, 
wet us as if we had passed through a mist, so that we 
could neither see nor hear one another, but trusting 
to our honest mules, we jogged on our way. The narrow 
bridges, in some places made only by felling huge fir-trees, 
and laying them athwart from mountain to mountain, 
over cataracts of stupendous depth, are very dangerous, 
and so are the passages and edges made by cutting away 
the main rock; others in steps; and in some places we 
pass between mountains that have been broken and fallen 
on one another; which is very terrible, and one had need 
of a sure foot and steady head to climb some of these preci- 

263 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

pices, besides that they are harbours for bears and wolves, 
who have sometimes assaulted travellers. In these straits, 
we frequently alighted, now freezing in the snow, and anon 
frying by the reverberation of the sun against the cliffs 
as we descend lower, when we meet now and then a few 
miserable cottages so built upon the declining of the rocks, 
as one would expect their sliding down." ^ 

Smollett went over the Col di Tenda in March, 1765; 
and his experience, as will be seen, does not materially 
differ from that of travelers crossing Mont Cenis and other 
high mountains. He started at three in the morning and at 
four began the ascent. It was, he says, "by far the highest 
mountain in the whole journey: it was now quite covered 
with snow, which at the top of it was near twenty feet thick. 
Half way up, there are quarters for a detachment of sol- 
diers, posted here to prevent smuggling, and an inn called 
La Ca, which in the language of the country signifies the 
house. At this place, we hired six men to assist us in ascend- 
ing the mountain, each of them provided with a kind of 
hough to break the ice, and make a sort of steps for the 
miiles. When we were near the top, however, we were 
obliged to alight, and climb the mountain supported each 
by two of those men, called coiilants, who walk upon the 
snow with great firmness and security. We were followed 
by the mules, and though they are very sure-footed animals, 
and were frost-shod for the occasion, they stumbled and 
fell very often ; the ice being so hard that the sharp-headed 
nails in their shoes could not penetrate." ^ On the other 
side the travelers slid down on a kind of sledge. "At Coni 
we found the countess C — from Nice, who had made the 
same journey in a chair, carried by porters. This is no 
other than a common elbow-chair of wood, with a straw 
bottom, covered above with a waxed cloth, to protect the 
traveller from the rain or snow, and provided with a foot- 
board upon which the feet rest. It is carried like a sedan- 
chair; and for this purpose six or eight porters are employed 
at the rate of three or four livres a head per day, according 
to the season, allowing three days for their return. Of 

264 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

these six men, two are between the poles carrying like com- 
mon chairmen, and each of these supported by the other 
two, one at each hand; but as those in the middle sustain 
the greatest burthen, they are relieved by the others in a 
regular rotation. In descending the mountain, they carry 
the poles on their shoulders, and, in that case, four men are 
employed, one at each end." ^ 

The ordinary pass for travelers coming through France 
was that leading over Mont Cenis and down to Turin ; ^ 
and hence this mountain appears frequently in the ac- 
counts of tourists. Gray crossed it with Horace Walpole 
in the autumn of 1739, taking six days for the passage. 
They were, as Gray says, "as well armed as possible 
against the cold with muffs, hoods, and masks of beaver, 
fur boots, and bear skins"; ^ and such was the common 
equipment of well-to-do tourists for a passage of the high 
mountains.^ 

One of the most detailed and interesting accounts of the 
crossing of Mont Cenis is Sharp's, though there are so many 
that selection is difficult: ^ "The passage into Italy is com- 
posed of a very steep ascent, almost three miles high; then 
of a plain, nearly flat, about five or six miles long; and, 
lastly, of a descent, about six miles in length. . . . Both 
going and returning, when you arrive at the foot of the hill, 
your coach, or chaise, is taken to pieces and carried upon 
mules to the other side, and you yourself are transported by 
two men, on a common straw chair,^ without any feet to it, 
fixed upon two poles, like a sedan chair, with a swinging- 
foot-board to prop up your feet; but, though it be the work 
of two men only to carry you, six, and sometimes eight, 
attend, in order to relieve one another. The whole way 
that you ride in this manner being fourteen or fifteen miles, 
when the person carried is corpulent, it is necessary to 
employ ten porters." ' 

The cool-headed Arthur Young supplements some of 
this detail: "To those who, from reading are full of expec- 
tation of something very sublime, it is almost as great a de- 
lusion as to be met with in the regions of romance : if trav- 

265 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

ellers are to be believed, the descent rammassant on the 
snow, is made with the velocity of a flash of lightning; I 
was not fortunate enough to meet with any thing so wonder- 
ful. At the grand croix we seated ourselves in machines 
of four sticks, dignified with the name of traineau; a mule 
draws it, and a conductor, who walks between the machine 
and the animal, serves chiefly to kick the snow into the face 
of the rider. When arrived at the precipice, which leads 
down to Lanebourg [Lans-le-bourg], the mule is dismissed, 
and the rammassang [sic] begins. The weight of two persons, 
the guide seating himself in the front, and directing it with 
his heels in the snow, is sufficient to give it motion. For 
most of the way he is content to follow very humbly the 
path of the mules, but now and then crosses to escape a 
double, and in such spots the motion is rapid enough, for a 
few seconds, to be agreeable ; they might very easily shorten 
the line one half, and by that means gratify the English 
U^ith the velocity they admire so much." ^ 

Of the danger involved in this passage Baretti also makes 
light: "And a propos of mount Cenis, let no one be fright- 
ened by the dismal accounts, so frequent in the books of 
travel-writers, of the bad road over dangerous precipices 
through Savoy or the Apennines. These dangerous preci- 
pices exist no where, but in the imagination of the timorous; 
for wherever there is any dubious pass, the Italian postilions 
have common sense enough not to venture their necks along 
with those of their passengers, but they desire them to 
alight and assist in conquering, the difficulty, if there are 
no people of the country at hand." ^ 

The passage of the Alps was never easy, and, especially 
in winter, was doubtless now and then sufficiently terrify- 
ing to a novice who was expecting to be frightened,^ but 
the imagination of the eighteenth century magnified the 
difficulty and the danger until nearly every traveler who 
had accomplished the feat fancied himself more or less of a 
hero — in spite of the fact that the crossing was an every- 
day affair for the hardy Swiss porters. 

But although the danger was exaggerated by inexperi- 

266 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

enced tourists with weak nerves, the difficulty need not be 
unduly minimized. The paths were narrow and steep, cov- 
ered with ice and snow in winter, and occasionally exposed 
to avalanches. The ordinary traveler may be pardoned for 
showing some apprehension when an unimaginative maker 
of guide-books like Nugent details for the prospective 
tourist the dangers of "the frightfiil mountain called S. 
Godard. This mountain is two miles high, and very dan- 
gerous in winter, because of the great heaps of snow and 
stones, which the violence of the winds rolls down the 
precipices. But the most hazardous part is the bridge on 
the Russ, called the bridge of hell, from the horrid noise 
the water makes as it tumbles from the rocks, and from the 
slipperiness of the bridge, which renders it difficult even 
to foot passengers, who are obliged to creep on all-fours, 
lest the fury of the winds should drive them down the 
rocks." 1 

If in our day the Alps had to be traversed on the old 
narrow roads by the old means of conveyance, they would 
even yet be dreaded. In Smollett's opinion, "Certainly 
no person who travels to Italy from England, Holland, 
France, or Spain, would make a troublesome circuit to pass 
the Alps by the way of Savoy and Piedmont, if he could 
have the convenience of going past by the way of Aix, 
Antibes, and Nice, along the side of the Mediterranean, 
and through the Riviera of Genoa, which from the sea 
affords the most agreeable and amazing prospect I ever 
beheld." « 

After the Alps, the Apennines were no great obstacle to 
tourists, though the slow toiling up the rough, steep roads 
was a tiresome experience. Every traveler from Bologna 
to Florence had to traverse this mountain barrier, which 
required a three days* journey.^ Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
tagu ^ called it " a dreadful passage." Yet on the whole the 
Apennines were suited to eighteenth-century taste much 
better than the Alps, and, in the opinion of the Earl of 
Carlisle, "though not so wonderful . . . much more 
beautiful, being covered with a great quantity of timber, 

267 



SWITZERLAND AND THE MOUNTAINS 

and the cottages in the most romantic situations in a very 
deHghtful manner." * 

The foregoing brief survey by no means includes all that 
might be said on the mountain experiences of eighteenth- 
century tourists; but the other mountain districts in the 
regions traversed on the grand tour call for no special com- 
ment, since they were in general merely difficult rather 
than dangerous. 



268 



CHAPTER XII 

ITALY 



In the eighteenth century the shortest tour abroad was 
a notable experience, and a journey to Italy an achievement 
to be boasted of for the remainder of one's life. Nothing, 
indeed, is more striking than the contrast between the 
weakness and poverty of the country as a whole and the 
fascination that it exerted upon all Europe. The exquisite 
landscapes, the music, the art, the architecture, the ruins 
surviving from the great past, gave Italy a unique place. 
Pilgrims and scholars and pleasure-seekers had made their 
way there for centuries.^ The very unlikeness of Italy to 
England in almost every particular was an added attrac- 
tion: and in the eighteenth century Englishmen flocked 
there in greater numbers than ever before, for the sojourn 
in Italy was "considered as the finishing part of a polite 
education." ^ 

But the interest of the ordinary tourist was mainly that 
of curiosity. The political power of Italy was shattered 
into fragments and the country had ceased to be the intel- 
lectual leader of Europe, as it had been in the fifteenth and 
early sixteenth centuries. Italy now drew attention more 
as the picturesque survivor of a splendid past than as an 
active participant in anything demanding initiative and 
strenuous endeavor. To the student making the grand tour 
Italy was the most interesting museum in the world, and 
though a land from which the efficient life had largely 
departed, it remained still notable because of the part it 
had played in history. 

To us of to-day eighteenth-century Italy seems in many 
particulars like something fantastical and unreal, so differ- 

269 



ITALY 

ent is it from the Italy we know, penetrated as it now is 
in remote recesses by the railway, the motor-car, or the 
bicycle. Within the past forty years, through the wonder- 
ful transformations wrought by electricity and modern 
machinery, Italy has made infinitely more progress than 
in the whole course of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies. But even yet, in out-of-the-way districts, the 
traveler finds many of the conditions of a century or two 
ago. In a hundred towns of Italy there are squares and 
streets substantially unchanged since the eighteenth- 
century tourist looked upon them. And as for pictures and 
statues, a good proportion of those that are to-day most 
famous are enumerated in the guide-books of Misson and 
Nugent and De La Lande. But one now misses the brightly 
colored costumes of the olden time, the powdered wigs, the 
high headdresses of fine ladies, the gaudy gilded chariots, 
the sedan chairs. For us the eighteenth century can never 
live again. 

In the eighteenth century degeneracy was writ large 
over most of the country and was a subject of comment in 
every tourist's account of his travels. One wearies a little 
of the insistence of travelers in dwelling on this theme, but 
the fact was so forced upon their attention at every turn 
that they could not escape it. The decline of Italy from the 
proud position it had held in the fifteenth and early sixteenth 
centuries had long been in progress. Even at the end of the 
sixteenth century, "Italy had retrograded, crushed by 
foreign oppression. . . . Excepting Venice, which was 
even then in its decline, the other cities of Italy retained 
scarce a shadow of their former power. Their earlier 
commercial supremacy was a thing of the past." ^ Says 
a writer in 1743: "The Italians are so intirely taken up 
with what the People and Country were seventeen hun- 
dred Years ago, that they neglect the present Condition of 
both. Their Cities are now thin of Inhabitants, their soil 
barren and uncultivated, and themselves a pusillanimous, 
enervate, lazy people." ^ 

Not unnaturally, there grew up, in process of time, a 

270 



ITALY 

widespread and exaggerated conception of Italy as a land of 
faded splendor with its glory all in the past, and with a 
present of poverty and dirt and lawlessness, while every- 
where the bandit followed his desperate trade. This is the 
conception which appears in Mrs. Radcliffe's romances and 
which is based wholly upon tales picked up from travelers 
and her reading of books of travel. Justified as this view 
in some degree was, it took account of none but surface 
facts. 

In striking contrast with this common estimate of Italy as 
a land hopelessly sunken in poverty and weakness is the 
enthusiasm with which travelers kindle at the thought of 
the delights to be found there. Eighteenth-century tour- 
ists of the most varied type are at one in their praise of this 
garden of Europe. The veteran traveler Misson, summing 
up a wide experience, says: "I have observed that those 
who speak of Italy are usually full of prejudices in favor 
of that fine country. Most young travellers being persuaded 
that they shall find there an infinite number of surprising 
rarities, go thither with a resolution to admire every thing 
they meet." ^ 

In Addison's preface to his "Remarks on Italy," he ob- 
serves: "There is certainly no place in the world where a 
man may travel with greater pleasure and advantage than 
in Italy. One finds something more particular in the face 
of the country, and more astonishing in the works of nature, 
than can be met with in any other part of Europe." 

Nugent echoes Addison's opinion in almost the same 
words, and says that "Italy, for fine cities, surpasses all the 
rest of Europe." ^ Northall, in the preface to his "Travels 
through Italy," remarks upon the popularity of the Italian 
tour: "What Egypt was to the ancients, Italy is to the 
moderns. . . . Italy, thus enriched by nature and adorned 
by art, is therefore justly esteemed the most agreeable and 
most useful part of Europe to a lover of antiquity, and the 
polite arts and sciences ; nor is it strange that it should bs 
much frequented by foreigners of taste in this learned and 
refined age."^ And Eustace, in the same tone of enthu- 

271 



ITALY 

siasm, says: "No country furnishes a greater number of 
ideas, or inspires so many generous and exalting sentiments. 
To have visited it at any period, may be ranked among the 
minor blessings of life, and is one of the means of mental 
improvement." ^ 

English moralists now and then remarked with scorn 
upon the low moral tone of Italy, but they had little influ- 
ence in diverting the stream of travel into other channels. 

As a rule the tourist wasted little time upon the coun- 
try districts, which in general were thinly inhabited and 
destitute of the comforts of life. Italy was in a peculiar sense 
a land of cities. The Roman type of civilization magnified 
the importance of the city at the expense of the country; 
and the conditions of life in the Middle Ages had con- 
tinued many ancient traditions, which, even in the eight- 
eenth century, were by no means extinct. "In England 
and France," says Nugent, " 'tis customary for the nobility 
and gentry to spend part of their time in the country; but 
'tis not so in Italy, for here most people of distinction live 
in the cities, out of which there are very few castles or 
noblemen's seats to be seen, especially in comparison to 
what we observe in France and England." ^ 

Of the popularity of various Italian cities we have a long 
succession of testimonials from English tourists. The 
special favorites were Turin, Milan, Venice, Bologna, 
Florence, Rome, and Naples. But there were also a good 
number of others that in their measure were notably 
popular. All in all, apart from the marked eighteenth-cen- 
tury neglect of mountain regions and the patronizing and 
often contemptvious attitude toward places the main inter- 
est of which was medieval, there was not much in the 
eighteenth-century round that tourists in our day have 
greatly modified, even though they travel by rail rather 
than by the old-fashioned carriage. And if we were to 
make a list of the fifty places in Italy now most deserving 
attention, we should find a good proportion of them in the 
ordinary routes of the eighteenth-century tourist. 



272 



ITALY 



II 



A glance at the map of Italy and at the principal thor- 
oughfares traversing the peninsula is sufficient to show 
that, as in France, a few chief cities largely determined 
the route of the tourist. On the other hand, some cities, 
though almost inevitably included in the itinerary, were 
regarded merely as necessary halting-places on the way. 
Still others, interesting in themselves, though not easily 
accessible, were left in their lonely isolation and rarely 
if ever visited. To see any town that involved even a 
slight detour was, for one who had a fixed agreement 
with a vetturino, commonly impracticable, to say nothing 
of the unavoidable hardships to be encountered in out- 
of-the-way places. Of some of the cities most commonly 
visited we must take account, though at best we can 
find space for but a few. ' 

But before giving attention to the cities we must con- 
sider for a moment the routes by which they were com- 
monly reached. And even before outlining the routes 
we must take account of the disposition of the tourist 
himself. There were a few beaten tracks which tourists 
followed with remarkable fidelity. "No English traveller 
that ever I heard," says Baretti, "ever went a step out 
of those roads, which from the foot of the Alps lead straight 
to our most famed cities. None of them ever will deign 
to visit those places whose names are not in every body's 
mouth. They travel to see things, not men. Indeed 
they cannot help crossing both the Alps and the Apen- 
nines in two or three parts; but always do it in such 
haste, that their inhabitants are as much known to 
them as those of the Arimaspian cliffs. Our Mountain- 
eers, secluded in a manner from the rest of the world, 
never awake their curiosity." He cites a small region 
north of Vicenza, thought by some to be peopled by 
those Cimbri whom Marius defeated. "Yet they re- 
main perfectly unexplored by those very Britons who 
make it a point to spend a part of their income and 

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ITALY 

consecrate a part of their life to the visitation of dis- 
tant regions and to the knowledge of foreign customs 
and manners. Their poor curiosity will hardly extend 
farther than pictures and statues, or carnival festivities 
and holy-week ceremonies; nor could any of them be 
forced half a mile out of the most beaten track by my 
frequent expostulations. What a pity that so many young 
gentlemen of good parts, and never cramped for want 
of money, should all be so perverse on this particular." ^ 

One of Walpole's lively letters to West in 1739 expresses 
with exactness the spirit of the ordinary English tourist 
in Italy: "Dear West, I protest against having seen 
anything but what all the world has seen; nay, I have 
not seen half that, not some of the most common things; 
not so much as a miracle. Well, but you don't expect 
it, do you? Except pictures and statues, we are not 
very fond of sights; don't go a staring after crooked towers 
and conundrum staircases." ^ 

Englishmen were, indeed, commonly credited with 
marked individuality and independence of character. 
But on their travels they were, as a rule, less bent upon 
adding to the general stock of knowledge than upon 
checking off in a catalogue the things that other tourists 
had seen. As long as a region was not in the ordinary 
itinerary, they cheerfully neglected it, but when it had been 
enough talked about to be put in the list of things that 
must be seen, they flocked thither and made the fortune 
of the district. As Hazlitt remarks with some annoy- 
ance: "The English abroad turn out of their way to see 
every pettifogging, huckstering object that they could 
see better at home." ^ 

But there were large tracts of the country rarely if ever 
visited by the tourist and hardly accessible even if he 
had the desire to see them. Nearly half of Italy was 
thus neglected. The whole of the great region below a 
line drawn from coast to coast through Rome and Loretto 
was practically unknown, with the exception of the stretch 
between Rome and Naples and a circle of perhaps fifty 

274 



ITALY 

miles about Naples. With this entire region Misson 
troubles himself very little; "that country," he says, in 
his famous "New Voyage to Italy,"' "being almost im- 
practicable and very little frequented, because of the 
bad inns, in which you find nothing at all to eat; those 
people being accustomed to provide the strangers with 
fire and utensils only; an experience that I have made 
at Salerne." Thus neglected, much of the inland region 
south and east of Naples was almost as unknown as South 
America. Indeed, to this day the greater part of Italy 
that Misson left out of account is little frequented by tour- 
ists. They may run down by rail to Brindisi on their 
way to the East, or to Reggio on their way to Sicily, but 
they usually pass through as one might through a desert. 

There is no lovelier part of Europe than Sicily, yet in 
the eighteenth century only an occasional tourist found 
his way thither. Those who went had to face much dis- 
comfort as soon as they left the cities on the coast and 
attempted to go across country. The roads were mere 
trails, the inns extremely primitive or altogether lacking, 
and the danger from brigands by no means imaginary. 
Breval says in 1723: "Sicily is a ground very few Eng- 
lishmen have trod before me as observers." ^ Nor did many 
English hasten to tread it after him. Indeed, if we count 
up the English travelers of any note who went about the 
island in the eighteenth century, we enumerate a very 
small company.^ 

We need not, therefore, pause to comment upon Pal- 
ermo, with its exquisite survivals of the medieval period, 
notably that architectural gem, the Capella Palatina; 
upon Monreale, with its vast expanse of medieval mosaics ; 
upon Segesta, with its marvelously preserved Greek 
temple; upon Selinunte, with its stupendous temple ruins; 
upon Girgenti, with its wonderful group of ancient temples; 
upon Syracuse, with its catacombs, its vast, rock-hewn 
ancient citadel, its Greek theatre, its historic quarries, 
and its charming excursions; upon Taormina, perched 
on its rocky nest above the blue straits and facing the 

27s 



ITALY 

towering mass of snow-covered ^tna. Surely, nothing 
but conditions known to be almost unendurable could 
have kept tourists away from such a natural paradise 
as Sicily. 

But there were other interesting regions of Italy, far 
more accessible, that shared the same neglect,^ and which 
were viewed, if at all, with entire lack of intelligent ap- 
preciation. Baretti is again a witness: "I have seldom 
or never met in the books of English travellers with any 
account, even short and imperfect, of those parts of north- 
ern and western Italy, which are, one may say, but a 
stone's throw from the great road of Rome. These gentle- 
men will tell you of Turin, Milan, Brescia, Venice, and 
some other towns on that side, that they are very well 
built towns, very populous, and very rich; but they never 
tell by what means they are, and have been, maintained 
for so long a space of time in the state they describe them." ^ 

To the modem tourist there are few more attractive 
hill towns than Perugia. In the middle of the eighteenth 
century it counted about sixteen thousand inhabitants, 
not all, it must be confessed, of the best reputation.^ 
Travelers taking the middle route to Rome often found 
it convenient to spend a night there; and in their ac- 
counts they enumerate some of the sights, but they dis- 
play no understanding of the peculiar charm of the place. 
Smollett's account is amusingly vague. Whether, in- 
deed, he troubled himself to see what he reports is not 
entirely clear. But at all events, to the beauty of the 
situation of this old Etruscan city, with its walls and 
gates, and the magnificent views in every direction, 
he seems bHnd: "There being no relays at the post, we 
were obliged to stay the whole day and night at Perugia, 
which is a considerable city, built upon the acclivity of a 
hill, adorned with some elegant fountains, and several 
handsome churches, containing some valuable pictures 
by Guido, Raphael, and his master Pietro Perugino, 
who was a native of this place." ^ 

Knowing as we do the usual conditions of travel in 

276 



ITALY 

Italy, even on the beaten thoroughfares, and the usual 
indifference of tourists to places outside the conven- 
tional round, we can easily see why Nugent puts a num- 
ber of extremely interesting towns such as Volterra, 
Arezzo, Chiusi, Montepulciano, Cortona, Orvieto, into 
a list of "by-places," to be seen, if convenient, in going 
by way of Bologna and Florence to Rome.^ A similar 
list of places that he names on the route from Venice to 
Rome by way of Ancona and Loretto includes San Marino, 
visited from Rimini; Urbino, visited from Pesaro; Assisi,' 
Perugia, Gubbio, Fabriano.^ 

We need hardly remark that tourists in Italy in the 
period we are considering commonly avoided the moun- 
tains and made comparatively little of the lakes, though 
the Borromean Islands, with their artificial gardens, 
frequently drew travelers to Lake Maggiore. The ex- 
quisite Monte di Brianza, terminating in the triangle 
between the two arms of Lake Como, was, as Baretti ob- 
served, perhaps "the most delightful province in all Italy, 
and yet very seldom visited by English travellers." » 
It is a striking fact that De La Lande's account of Italy, 
filling eight volumes, merely gives the names of the lakes * 
without detail.^ 

As already remarked elsewhere, the taste for wild 
mountain scenery was still in its infancy a century and 
a half ago; and the Middle Ages and their works were 
despised as barbarous. Moreover, to most tourists the 
ordinary routes offered more than they could well see 
in the time at their disposal. None but the seasoned 
traveler could expect to profit by independent explora- 
tion, and comparatively few English tourists had the 
slightest desire to deviate from the conventional lines. 
And why, after all, should a gay young fellow exile himself 
in remote provincial towns, far from his English associates? 
His acquaintance with the language and the literature was 
practically nothing. He cared little for art, nothing for 
antiquity, except as a source of curiosities for his museum, 
and even on the main routes he was vexed with the unavoid- 

277 



ITALY 

able annoyances of the journey and the unlikeness of the 
inns to those of England. 

The facts already presented sufficiently explain, and 
in some measure justify, the tourist's preference for the 
conventional routes affording at least a moderate de- 
gree of comfort. These routes we find outlined in the 
old guide-books/ and also in the narratives of travelers. 
There is no lack of useful suggestions on the choice of 
places to visit both before and after arriving in Italy. 
But Misson very sensibly remarks: *"Tis almost im- 
possible to fix the road that ought to be taken by those 
who design to travel to Italy, since the choice of that 
depends on the place where they intend to enter the 
country, and the time they resolve to spend in it. Only, 
in general, they ought to consult the map, and so take 
their measures, that they may see the last days of the 
camaval at Venice, the Holy Week at Rome, and the 
octave of the Sacrament at Bologna; to avoid being 
at Rome during the great heats, etc. ... If they cannot 
be at Venice during the camaval, they ought at least 
to be there on Ascension Day." ^ 

We cannot go into great detail, but must content our- 
selves with presenting a few routes that were most im- 
portant. These are obviously the routes leading to Rome 
and to Naples, as well as those connecting Turin, Milan, 
Venice, Genoa, Bologna, Florence. In the great re- 
gion drained by the Po the variety of possible routes 
is bewildering.^ But in the selection of routes throughout 
a good part of Italy personal choice had comparatively 
small play. The tourist must conform to the obstacles 
presented by mountain barriers and shape his course 
as passes and valleys dictated. 

The configuration of the great chain of the Apennines 
permitted but two main routes from the cities of northern 
Italy to Rome. One route connecting Florence * and 
Rome passed through Siena, running down the west side 
of the peninsula some miles back from the coast. This 
route was one hundred and fifty-three miles long, and 

278 



ITALY 

touched Poggibonsi, Siena, Borgo, Lucignano, Buon 
Convento, Radicofani, Acquapendente, Vitcrbo, Rome.* 

The other main route closely followed the coast of the 
Adriatic. Setting out from Venice — as one coming 
over the Brenner might well do — one went by gondola 
to Chioggia, and then, crossing the mouths of the Adige 
and the Po and a good number of other streams and 
wet places, arrived at Ravenna. Thence one proceeded 
through Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia, Ancona," and 
Loretto, and by Foligno, Spoleto, Temi, Narni, and 
Otricoli to the Papal city — a distance of three hundred 
and four miles from Venice. ^ As there were interesting 
places to visit both on the east and on the west side of Italy, 
the tourist was advised to go down the one side and to 
return on the other. 

Besides these two main routes, one less popular,^ though 
intensely interesting to the student of the Middle Ages, 
ran from Bologna over the Apennines through the center 
of the peninsula, passing by way of Perugia and Assisi and 
finally joining the main road from Ancona to Rome.^ 
Goethe traveled this way on his famous Italian journey, 
visiting, besides other places, Perugia, Assisi, Foligno, 
Spoleto, and Tcrni. But the accommodations on this 
route left much to be desired. 

From Rome one could go to Naples by land or by 
sea, but, as already remarked, the roads in the great 
region south of Rome were wretched at best, even on the 
main route to Naples, and in the less frequented parts, 
were mere bridle-paths. One land route from Rome 
to Naples began with the Appian Way, and touched Ter- 
racina, Fondi, Mola, Gaeta, and Capua. 

Another, a little farther inland, passed through Monte 
Cassino, but before reaching Naples joined the other 
road and proceeded through Capua and Caserta. But 
neither route was very satisfactory to the tourist who 
depended for his comfort upon the inns along the road. 

The routes already outlined were in general closely 
followed, but to some degree they were modified to suit 

279 



ITALY 

individual taste or convenience. In addition to the great 
towns, the tourist would inevitably pass through many 
others more or less notable and bestow upon them such 
attention as his taste dictated and his time permitted. 

The tourist who had come by sea along the Riviera 
to Genoa or Leghorn, or over Mont Cenis to Turin, com- 
monly went down the west side of the peninsula to Rome 
and reserved Venice for the end of the journey. William 
Bromley's trip, for example, made about the close of 
the seventeenth century, is typical of the route followed 
by the average traveler throughout the eighteenth cen- 
tury. It includes Genoa, Milan, Pavia, Parma, Reggio, 
Bologna, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Leghorn, Siena, Monte- 
fiascone, Rome, Via Appia, Capua, Naples (where he 
spends five days), Rome, Otricoli, Nami, Temi, Spoleto, 
Loretto, Ancona, Fano, Pesaro, Rimini, Ferrara, the Adige 
and the Po (which he crosses by ferry), Rovigo, Padua, 
Venice, Verona. The attentive reader will notice some 
striking omissions, but one hurried traveler could not see 
everything. 

When Addison made his famous journey to Italy his 
guide-book was Misson's "New Voyage to Italy," which 
in the French or in translation served at least two gen- 
erations of tourists. Addison spent over four years abroad, 
remaining in France about eighteen months to perfect 
himself in the language. Then resuming his travels he 
coasted from Marseilles to Monaco and thence to Genoa. 
From here he made his way to Venice through Pavia, 
Milan, Brescia, Verona, and Padua. His route to Rome 
took him down the east coast and enabled him to visit 
Ferrara, Ravenna, Rimini, — with a side trip to the little 
mountain republic of San Marino, — Pesaro, Fano, Sin- 
igaglia, Ancona, and Loretto. From Rome he proceeded 
to Naples by land, saw the city and the environs, and 
returned to Rome by sea. After carefully studying Rome 
and the neighborhood, he went by way of Siena, Leg- 
horn, Pisa, and Lucca to Florence. Before leaving Italy 
he saw also Bologna, Modena, Parma, and Turin, and 

280 



ITALY 

finally went over Mont Cenis to Geneva. His choice 
of places was admirable, but he saw very few outside 
the usual round. In Switzerland he visited a few towns, 
among which were Fribourg, Bern, and Zurich. To 
Vienna he journeyed through Innsbruck and Hall and 
returned to England by way of Germany and Holland. 

About a generation after Addison's tour, Keysler, a 
German traveling tutor by profession, outlined in an 
excellent hand-book a route followed by multitudes of 
tourists. In many featiu-es his route strikingly resembles 
Addison's, though the order is very different. Follow- 
ing this route the tourist crossed Mont Cenis to Susa 
and Turin, ^ made an excursion to the Borromean Isles, 
Milan, and Pavia, and proceeded to Genoa by way of 
Alessandria. From Genoa he went by ship to Leghorn 
and from there by carriage to Rome, through Pisa, Lucca, 
Florence, Siena, and Viterbo. After Rome came a trip 
to Naples by way of Velletri, Fondi, and Capua. Return- 
ing to Rome he followed the coast road along the Adriatic 
from Loretto to Ravenna and then visited a good number 
of cities in the region north of the Apennines — Bologna, 
Modena, Reggio, Parma, Piacenza, Cremona, Mantua, 
Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice. Keysler calls attention 
to the fact that the post-houses along the Adriatic coast 
road gave the traveler better accommodations than on 
the route from Florence to Rome,^ and brought him 
in contact with people more satisfactory to deal with; for, 
says he, "they conclude" that travelers on the way to 
Rome "are strangers to the road, and therefore think 
it allowable to take all advantages they can of the un- 
experienced." ^ 

Keysler's route, with the places he singles out for a 
visit, is admirable, and although it necessarily leaves 
many interesting cities untouched, it includes much 
that is most characteristic in Italy. Such, then, in the 
order followed by Addison or by Keysler, was the normal 
track of the English tourist, though not every tourist 
attempted so much.^ 

281 



ITALY 

But the ambitious scholar tried to do more and followed, 
with some variations, the plan suggested by Eustace for 
an elaborate classical tour lasting a year and a half and 
including the greater part of the peninsula. The tourist 
making this tour visits in order Brussels, Liege, Spa, 
Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Bonn, goes along the Rhine 
to Coblenz, Mainz, Strassburg, crosses the Rhine, sees 
Mannheim, and traverses the Palatinate and the terri- 
tories of Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, and Salzburg. By way 
of the Tyrol or the Rhetian Alps he goes through Inns- 
bruck over the Brenner Pass to Trent, Bassano, and 
Mestre. Thence he may send his carriage by land to 
Padua and embark for Venice. From Venice he goes 
to Padua by the Brenta, visits Arqua and the Euganean 
Hills, then Ferrara and Bologna, and proceeds by the 
Via Emilia to Forli. Then he turns to Ravenna, skirts 
the Adriatic to Rimini, and makes an excursion to San 
Marino. Advancing along the coast toward Rome he 
goes through Ancona, Osimo, Loretto, and Macerata to 
Tolentino, and from thence, over the Apennines to Fol- 
igno, Spoleto, Temi, and Civita Castellana, he arrives 
at Rome by the end of November. He is warned not 
to cross the Apennines as long as there is danger of 
malaria from the Pontine Marshes and the Campagna. 
After spending December in Rome, he goes to Naples for 
January, February, and March, and studies the environs. 
Returning to Rome the week before Easter he sees in 
April, May, and June the region about Rome, — Tibur 
(Tivoli), Ostia, Antium, Praeneste, the Sabine Mountains, 
— and spends July and August in the hill country about 
Albano. In September he turns toward Florence, visits 
Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, and La Vema, and winters 
in Florence and other Tuscan cities. Early in February 
he passes the Apennines to visit Modena, Parma, Pia- 
cenza, Lodi, Cremona, Mantua, Verona, allowing four 
or five days or more to each. From Verona he goes to 
Peschiera and Lago di Garda; thence by Brescia and 
Bergamo to Milan, Como, Lago Maggiore, Vercelli, Tor- 

282 



ITALY 

tona, Genoa, and along the Maritime Alps by Savona to 
Nice, and concludes his Italian tour with Turin. 

This is without question an admirable tour, as far as 
it goes, but in view of the striking omission of the whole 
of Sicily, of Orvieto, Assisi, Perugia, Cortona, Chiusi, 
Gubbio, Urbino, Siena, Volterra, and a score of other 
places of interest alike to the classical and the ordinary 
tourist, the concluding remark of Eustace is particularly 
suggestive: "If while at Naples, he find it safe or prac- 
ticable to penetrate into the southern provinces of Cal- 
abria and Apulia, he will not neglect the opportunity; 
and, with the addition of that excursion, by following the 
road which I have traced out, he will have seen every 
town of note, and indeed every remarkable plain, hill, 
or mountain in Italy." ^ 

III 

But it is time to turn from routes to the cities them- 
selves. It is hardly necessary to consider in detail every 
place that tourists visited, and such a procedure would 
manifestly carry us far beyond our limits, but we may well 
single out a few typical cities of special interest. We have 
already observed that tourists generally followed routes 
that had long been established. But in laying out their 
itinerary tourists naturally modified their plans for a 
great variety of reasons. More than one place owed a 
good part of its popularity to the fact that it was con- 
veniently situated on one of the conventional lines of 
travel. 

A good instance is Chambery, in Savoy. This old city, 
on one of the main eighteenth-century routes to Italy and 
in the midst of charming mountain scenery, drew many 
English tourists for a protracted stay. But the Earl 
of Cork and Orrery, to cite one example, confessed his 
disillusion when he really saw the place: "How have I 
been mistaken in my expectations of Chamberry? I had 
read so much in news-papers, treaties, and modem his- 

283 



ITALY 

survey of Italy. Genoa the Superb owed its title, in part, 
to its magnificent situation and in part to its palaces. 
The Via Baibi and the Via Nuova were two of the most 
famous streets in Europe. Great wealth had flowed into 
the city through the channels of trade; and the excess 
of shrewdness that the Genoese displayed had long since 
won them the reputation "of being a treacherous, over- 
reaching set of people, ... so cunning that it would 
be impossible for a Jew to get bread amongst them." ^ 
As at Venice, the nobles of Genoa for centuries had not 
disdained to turn their attention to commerce and to 
banking, and some of them had incomes of a million 
a year.^ But here, as elsewhere, the nobles had degen- 
erated, and they displayed little of the energy of their 
ancestors. " Public opinion is nothing here,"^ says Dupaty, 
the French tourist. Yet the Genoese people had the 
proud distinction of maintaining their independence 
in the eighteenth century in the face of Austria.^ 

Visitors to Genoa as a rule express little enthusiasm. 
Dupaty finds the streets dirty and filled with beggars.^ 
So numerous were the mendicants that Mrs. Piozzisays: 
"A chair is, therefore, above all things, necessary to be 
carried in, even a dozen steps, if you are likely to feel 
shocked at having your knees suddenly clasped by a 
figure hardly human; who perhaps, holding you forcibly 
for a minute, conjures you loudly by the sacred wounds 
of our Lord Jesus Christ to have compassion on his 
wounds;" ^ at the same time showing them. No particu- 
lar significance need be given to the presence of the beg- 
gars, who were only too common throughout the penin- 
sula. Yet in a meastu-e they showed that Genoa shared 
the decay of the rest of Italy. In other respects, Genoa 
had a somewhat unpleasant reputation, which appears 
to have been fairly earned. Tourists commonly remarked 
upon the affability, but also upon the penuriousness, of 
the nobles, the lack of interest in art, the public per- 
mission of games of chance, and the dullness of the city.^ 
Cicisbeism here, as elsewhere, was general. 

286 



ITALY 

Women had more privileges at Genoa than in most 
of the cities of Italy; they were far better educated than 
in any other part of Italy, though some tourists remark 
upon their distaste for reading; ^ and they might have 
been expected to make the city the social rival of Turin, 
at least. Such rank it never attained, and at best it can 
hardly be called a favorite sojourn of English tourists. 
But whatever its drawbacks, it was one of the gateways 
to Italy, and it saw every year a cosmopolitan society gath- 
ered from all parts of Europe — from England, "Ger- 
many, France, Sweden, and Russia" — that met in the 
conversazioni to which one might with no great difficulty 
find admittance. Dull as the conversazioni usually were, 
with their endless games of chance and their vapid chatter, 
they were not lacking in outward splendor. The palaces 
were "magnificently furnished with pictures, gildings, 
lustres"; ^ and the entertainments, although "more costly 
than elegant," 2 were fairly typical of what one might 
expect to find elsewhere in Italy. 

When we pass from Genoa to the region drained by the 
Po, we find an open country in which the tourist could 
journey in any direction at his convenience. We cannot 
follow him from point to point, but must single out for a 
word of comment a few favorite cities. And we may well 
begin with Milan. 

Milan was the third city in Italy for wealth and pop- 
ulation, and in De La Lande's opinion was "of all the 
cities of Italy the one where strangers were most favorably 
received." ^ All sorts of foreign money circulated there;* 
and even in Misson's day there were two men ' ' who made 
it their business to show the rarities of the place to stran- 
gers." ^ The people of Milan were "commonly com- 
pared to the Germans for their plain honesty, and to 
the French for their fondness of pomp and elegance in 
equipages and household furniture." ^ 

Under the Spanish domination Milan and the sur- 
rounding country had been overloaded with debts; com- 
merce had been reduced to almost nothing, agricul- 

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ITALY 

ture neglected and the people impoverished. In the 
course of the eighteenth century, after Milan came under 
Austrian rule, reforms of all sorts were introduced. Wealth 
followed industry, and reasonable contentment pre- 
vailed. "The period of Maria Theresa," says Tivaroni, 
"in the memory of the Lombards who could compare it 
wnth the Spanish, remained the age of gold." ^ 

Milan was noted for its comfort and cheapness, ^ but 
it had no such fascination as did Naples or Rome, and 
never won an assured place as the favorite abode of Eng- 
lish travelers who could afford the time for a protracted 
sojourn. De La Lande advises the tourist to spend four 
days at Milan. In this time a busy man could easily see 
the pictures at the Brera, the collection of medals, the 
churches, and the great hospital, though, of course, he 
could make little or no acquaintance with the people. 
As already remarked, there was no lack of welcome for 
foreigners, particularly for the English, at fashionable 
balls and assemblies. But the society the hurried tourist 
saw was mainly that which paraded the streets in carriages 
in the evening and passed and repassed in the great place 
about the cathedral. 

From many points of view, particularly in its buildings, 
brilliantly representing many types of architecture, and 
in its collections of art, Milan unquestionably offered 
notable attractions. But tourists were disposed to be 
critical. Especially did the cathedral in its partly fin- 
ished state fail to satisfy the , taste of many, though 
they were awed by its size. Burnet's comments are typ- 
ical: "The dome hath nothing to commend it of archi- 
tecture, it being built in the rude Gothic manner; but 
for the vastness and riches of the building it is equal 
to any in Italy, St. Peter's itself not excepted." But 
he goes on to say: "The riches of the churches of 
Milan strike one with amazement, the building, the 
painting, the altars, and the plate, and everything in the 
convents except their libraries, are all signs both of 
great wealth and of a very powerful superstition. But 

288 



ITALY 

their libraries not only here, but all Italy over, are 
scandalous things." * 

Beside Burnet's impressions we may place those of 
De Brosses, more than a half-century later. The lively 
French traveler was enthusiastic over Milan until he had 
visited Rome. But, says he, "Rome has so many other 
beautiful things that I have seen since, that they have 
entirely spoiled Milan for me." ^ He would like, he says, 
to withdraw all the superlatives that he had put into his 
earlier letters. An opinion of this sort must not be taken 
for more than it is worth, but it unquestionably represents 
a not infrequent attitude toward Milan in the eighteenth 
century. 

In going from Milan to Venice one was likely to see 
Verona and Padua. To the mere tourist Verona offered 
less for a long stay than Florence or Rome, but the swift 
foaming river, the girdling mountains, the quaint beauty 
of the medieval city, and the solemn dignity of the great 
Roman amphitheater, gave the little city a marked in- 
dividuality. Few situations in Italy were more delight- 
ful. Evelyn, with his English fondness for country life, 
said that of all places he had seen in Italy he would there 
fix his residence. Mrs. Piozzi counted Verona the gay- 
est town she had ever lived in; and this, after a long ex- 
perience with society in London and on the Continent. 
The city had come up since Misson's day, when it looked 
"like a poor place," with little trade and with not many 
of the landed gentry who made any great figure. In the 
eighteenth century Verona saw every year a multitude 
of tourists, but, for the most part, they rapidly viewed 
the amphitheater, the churches, and the other sights, 
and passed on to Venice, to Florence, to Rome. 

In going from Verona to Padua many travelers passed 
through Vicenza. This little city possesses in the fagade 
of its town-house the greatest masterpiece of Palladio, 
to say nothing of his famous Olympic theater and a 
score of notable palaces, but in general the comments 
of tourists on Vicenza are contemptuous. Misson calls 

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ITALY 

the town-house " an indifferent structure, as indeed," 
he adds, "are many others which pass among them for 
mighty magnificent buildings"; and later travelers echo 
his opinion. 

One who was bound for Venice could hardly avoid 
visiting Padua. The university no longer attracted 
English students as it did in the reign of Elizabeth, when 
young Oxonians who traveled in Italy were accustomed 
to carry home certificates of matriculation at Padua, ^ 
but despite the partly deserted thoroughfares there was 
a quiet charm in the place that still brought many tourists. 
Not every one, it is true, displays the enthusiasm of the 
clerical Dr. Warner, who writes to Selwyn in 177S: "Oh 
sir, you must come to Padua! There are a thousand 
things worth seeing, and I think there would be good 
society found in it. I am much pleased with it. The 
grass indeed, grows in the streets, but perhaps I like it 
the better for that reason." ' 

Like most other Italian cities, Padua, in the eighteenth 
century was in a depressed state. Trade had greatly 
fallen off; the population had sadly dwindled; beggars 
swarmed at every corner. Tourists bent upon social 
pleasure felt the air of melancholy that brooded over the 
place, and not many thought of making a prolonged stay 
there, as had so commonly been the case in the sixteenth 
century. The renowned church of St. Anthony still was 
an attraction to the devout from all over Italy, but to 
stolid English tourists it was a, mere object of curiosity. 
Most of the other churches excited little interest. The 
French tourist De La Lande devotes half a page to Giotto's 
frescoes in S. Annunziata nell'Arena,^ but visitors in gen- 
eral in the mid-eighteenth century are not much con- 
cerned with medieval art. 

IV 

When at Padua one was at the threshold of Venice. 
Few tourists neglected Venice, for the charms of the island 

290 



ITALY 

city were unique. The marvelous situation of the place, 
with the tides of the sea sweeping past the walls of stately 
palaces, appealed strongly to the imagination and drew 
multitudes from every country in Europe. In the Carnival 
season the number of strangers rose to thirty thousand.^ 
In 1766, Venice still ranked as the third city in Italy,^ but 
she was nevertheless the mere shadow of her former self and 
possessed only the tradition of the days when she was Queen 
of the Adriatic and made her might felt in the Far East. 

The so-called Republic of Venice was in reality a narrow 
oligarchy, in which the common people counted for noth- 
ing.3 Not only were the common people excluded from all 
voice in the government, but so, too, were most of the no- 
bility. The direction of affairs was in the hands of a few 
of the richest families, while the rest of the population 
acquiesced in entire indifference.^ A diminutive army of 
four thousand men was charged with guarding the Vene- 
tian provinces and with maintaining, in some degree, the 
dignity of the state. But beggars and worthless vagabonds 
swarmed in the city streets and in the outlying country. 
Thieves greatly disturbed the public tranquillity and per- 
sonal security.6 Yet we may note that the city was lighted 
at night by three thousand lanterns.^ 

Many things were, indeed, in a bad way. All classes of 
society were impoverished. The nobles did nothing useful 
and occupied their too abundant leisure with gambling and 
licentiousness. The old commercial preeminence of Venice, 
along with her old aggressive spirit, had long since van- 
ished. "The art of glass-making was in great decadence 
. . . the manufacture of iron had declined." 7 The workers 
in gold had lost their cunning. But in her poverty and 
weakness Venice had not lost her arrogance. The jealous 
suspicion that had come down from an earlier day forbade 
the nobles to hold any conversation with ambassadors or 
foreign ministers.^ Even to address them through a third 
party was hazardous.^ Rightly enough Sharp remarks: 
"The law therefore renders the life of a foreign minister 
exceedingly dull and unsociable; besides that it stops the 

291 



ITALY 

the town-house "an indifferent structure, as indeed," 
he adds, "are many others which pass among them for 
mighty magnificent buildings"; and later travelers echo 
his opinion. 

One who was bound for Venice could hardly avoid 
visiting Padua. The university no longer attracted 
English students as it did in the reign of Elizabeth, when 
young Oxonians who traveled in Italy were accustomed 
to carry home certificates of matriculation at Padua, ^ 
but despite the partly deserted thoroughfares there was 
a quiet charm in the place that still brought many tourists. 
Not every one, it is true, displays the enthusiasm of the 
clerical Dr. Warner, who writes to Selwyn in 1778: "Oh 
sir, you must come to Padua! There are a thousand 
things worth seeing, and I think there would be good 
society found in it. I am much pleased with it. The 
grass indeed, grows in the streets, but perhaps I like it 
the better for that reason." ^ 

Like most other Italian cities, Padua, in the eighteenth 
century was in a depressed state. Trade had greatly 
fallen off; the population had sadly dwindled; beggars 
swarmed at every corner. Toiurists bent upon social 
pleasure felt the air of melancholy that brooded over the 
place, and not many thought of making a prolonged stay 
there, as had so commonly been the case in the sixteenth 
century. The renowned church of St. Anthony still was 
an attraction to the devout from all over Italy, but to 
stolid English tourists it was a mere object of curiosity. 
Most of the other churches excited little interest. The 
French tourist De La Lande devotes half a page to Giotto's 
frescoes in S. Annunziata nell'Arena,^ but visitors in gen- 
eral in the mid-eighteenth centtiry are not much con- 
cerned with medieval art. 

IV 

When at Padua one was at the threshold of Venice. 
Few tourists neglected Venice, for the charms of the island 

290 



ITALY 

city were unique. The marvelous situation of the place, 
with the tides of the sea sweeping past the walls of stately 
palaces, appealed strongly to the imagination and drew 
multitudes from every country in Europe. In the Carnival 
season the number of strangers rose to thirty thousand.^ 
In 1766, Venice still ranked as the third city in Italy,^ but 
she was nevertheless the mere shadow of her former self and 
possessed only the tradition of the days when she was Queen 
of the Adriatic and made her might felt in the Far East. 

The so-called Republic of Venice was in reality a narrow 
oligarchy, in which the common people counted for noth- 
ing.^ Not only were the common people excluded from all 
voice in the government, but so, too, were most of the no- 
bility. The direction of affairs was in the hands of a few 
of the richest families, while the rest of the population 
acquiesced in entire indifference.'* A diminutive army of 
four thousand men was charged with guarding the Vene- 
tian provinces and with maintaining, in some degree, the 
dignity of the state. But beggars and worthless vagabonds 
swarmed in the city streets and in the outlying country. 
Thieves greatly disturbed the public tranquillity and per- 
sonal security.^ Yet we may note that the city was lighted 
at night by three thousand lanterns.® 

Many things were, indeed, in a bad way. All classes of 
society were impoverished. The nobles did nothing useful 
and occupied their too abundant leisure with gambling and 
licentiousness. The old commercial preeminence of Venice, 
along with her old aggressive spirit, had long since van- 
ished. "The art of glass-making was in great decadence 
, . . the manufacture of iron had declined." ^ The workers 
in gold had lost their cunning. But in her poverty and 
weakness Venice had not lost her arrogance. The jealous 
suspicion that had come down from an earlier day forbade 
the nobles to hold any conversation with ambassadors or 
foreign ministers.^ Even to address them through a third 
party was hazardous.^ Rightly enough Sharp remarks: 
"The law therefore renders the life of a foreign minister 
exceedingly dull and imsociable; besides that it stops the 

291 



ITALY 

channel through which young gentlemen on their travels 
would naturally find access to the best company." ^ But, 
says De La Lande, "the reserve that Venetians of the 
highest class affect for the foreign ministers does not ex- 
tend entirely to those who have relations with them and 
who see them." And, he adds, "in everything that does 
not concern the government one enjoys the greatest free- 
dom at Venice, and strangers are not disturbed there." ^ 
Nevertheless, spies were ever on the alert, and early in the 
century it behooved "every prudent person to be upon his 
guard, and to observe the strictest caution in talking of 
state affairs at Venice." ^ In Keysler's day the suspicious 
government did not permit company to gather freely for 
conversation in the coffee-houses round St. Mark's Place.* 

Not unnaturally, the Venetian nobility avoided possible 
trouble by having no unnecessary relations with foreigners. 
The traditional exclusiveness had in the course of genera- 
tions hardened into a fixed social usage. Strangers might 
meet members of the Venetian nobility at a cafe or on the 
Broglio, but were not commonly admitted to their houses 
or to their social gatherings,^ and accordingly found "less 
society at Venice than in most of the cities of Italy" ^ — a 
situation that many English tourists found not hard to bear. 
The nobles of Venice were, indeed, sadly degenerate and 
well deserved the cutting satire of Goldoni.'' 

But although close relations with the Venetian nobility 
were not easy to establish, this lazy, decadent city, with 
its multi-colored spectacles, was a delightful place. Stran- 
gers agree that there were few cities where one found so 
much politeness as at Venice ^ and where one was made 
more thoroughly at home. Venice was one of the half- 
dozen cities of the peninsula that tempted foreigners to 
make a prolonged stay.^ Evelyn spent six months there 
while on his Continental tour. Naturally, the tide of Eng- 
lish tourists at Venice ebbed and flowed. Lady Mary Wort- 
ley Montagu, in a letter of October 14, 1739, says: "Here 
are no English except a Mr. Berlie and his governor, who 
arrived two days ago, and who intend but a short stay." 

292 



ITALY 

But in an undated letter, possibly written in 1740, she 
complains of "this town being at present infested with 
English, who torment me as much as the frogs and lice did 
the palace of Pharaoh, and are surprised that I will not 
suffer them to skip about my house from morning till 
night; me, that never opened my doors to such sort of 
animals in England. I wish I knew a corner of the world 
inaccessible to petit-maitres and fine ladies." ^ 

The attractions of Venice, even apart from the unique 
situation and the exquisite buildings, were many. Even 
to jaded tourists the Carnival, with its long-continued fes- 
tivities, offered something unique. Strangers, accordingly, 
flocked to Venice, and if possible arranged their tour so as 
to be there at Ascension time, when was "the winding up 
of the Italian season of amusements for foreigners." 2 The 
great fair in the Piazza of St. Mark began with the Feast 
of the Ascension, and on Ascension Day the Doge wedded 
the Adriatic with his ring. Besides the out-of-door spec- 
tacles, eight or nine theaters, including opera houses, 
offered abundance of comedy for every taste.^ Tragedy 
was out of fashion.^ Throughout the performance of the 
play or the opera there was a constant buzz of conversa- 
tion, but as soon as the ballet 'dancers flitted across the 
stage the chatter ceased ^ and the eyes of the spectators 
eagerly followed every movement. Strangers were warned 
not to sit in the pit, for the gilded youth of Venice had the 
pleasant habit not only of throwing the rinds of oranges and 
other fruit from their boxes, but also of spitting upon the 
heads of humbler folk who sat below them.^ 

Although the various forms of entertainment at Venice 
afforded many strangers abundance of pastime for months, 
tourists of active temperament often found that the novelty 
of Venice rapidly wore off, and the city became tiresome. 
Englishmen in particular, accustomed as they were to 
brisk walks over the hills or to riding across country after 
the hounds, felt the confinement irksome. "When you 
wish to take the air here, you must submit to be paddled 
about from morning till night in a narrow boat, along dirty 

293 



ITALY 

canals; or, if you don't like this, you have one resource 
more, which is, that of walking in St. Mark's." ^ 

Critical tourists eniunerate many other drawbacks. One 
finds the water an invitation to gnats; and, as every one 
knows, they are at times an intolerable nuisance in the 
Venice of our own day.^ Moreover, at certain seasons the 
stench from the canals was overpowering.^ In a letter to 
Selwyn the lively Dr. Warner breaks out: "But if the 
eye, with its neighbour nose, suffers itself to be carried 
down the Grand Canal, which . . . leads to the chinks 
and crannies of the city, — f ah ! an ounce of civet, good 
apothecary, to sweeten my imagination — Venice is a stink- 
pot, charged with the very virus of hell ! I do not wonder 
that Howard of Bedford, the jail-man, who is just gone 
from hence, should advise a young gentleman who is in the 
house not to stay above four days lest he should be ill." * 
Nugent objects to "the dampness of the air and the scar- 
city of good water and fuel," and adds: "It may be a fine 
city to spend a month or two in, but not to be confined in 
all one's life." ^ 

Many tourists complain that even St. Mark's Place and 
the Doge's Palace are unspeakably filthy. Baron von 
Archenholz — to cite but one witness — says that "in the 
Doge's Palace, not only the entrance, but the very stairs 
are like a sink. Go where you will, you find whole rills of 
stinking water, and smell its noxious exhalations. The 
nobles, who honestly contribute their share, never regard 
these nuisances, and paddle through them with uplifted 
gowns." ^ 

Venice had, moreover, an unenviable preeminence as the 
brothel of Europe,^ though Naples was notorious for its 
vileness. Especially at the carnival time the comparative 
reserve of ordinary seasons was thrown off, and courtesans 
brazenly captured their victims in the streets. The moral 
tone of the society that set the standards for Venice was 
deplorable.^ Says Nugent: "The use of concubines is so 
generally received that the wife generally lives in good cor- 
respondence with them." Mothers, he goes on to say, 

294 



REGATTA ON THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE 



dlJ'^ii^ 




ITALY 

arrange to get one for an unmarried son. Sometimes two 
or three young fellows share one among them and divide 
the expense. "When the nobility have done with their 
concubines, they become courtezans. Of these there are 
whole streets full, who receive all comers; and as the 
habits of other people are black and dismal, these dress in 
the gayest colors, with their breasts open and their faces all 
bedaubed with paint, standing by dozens at the doors and 
windows to invite their customers." ^ Even Baretti ad- 
mits that Venice is ' ' infinitely more corrupted ' ' than London 
itself. There are, it is true, many ladies "of the most ex- 
alted virtue," but "they are not commonly known to 
English travellers." 2 " The courtezans here, " says North- 
all, "are the most insinuating, and have the most alluring 
arts of any in all Italy." ^ And Byron once remarked to 
Captain Med win: "Everything in a Venetian life, its gon- 
dolas, its effeminating indolence, its siroccos tend to ener- 
vate the mind and body." The fact that women could go 
alone in their gondolas without being watched ^ contributed 
to the general immorality. 

We must not linger undiily in Venice, but we ought to 
glance for a moment at the ordinary eighteenth-century es- 
timates of its most famous building, St. Mark's, and its 
immediate surroundings. In externals Venice has changed 
less in a centiiry and a half than any other large city in 
Italy. The scenes in pictures of Canaletto appear even yet 
strangely familiar to one who knows Venice. Cory ate and 
Howell were there three centuries ago, yet their comments 
show that much of the city as we know it to-day was al- 
ready before their eyes. Cory ate is enthusiastic over the 
splendor of Venice, and he regards St. Mark's Place as in- 
comparably the finest in the world. "For here," says he, 
"is the greatest magnificence of architecture to be scene, 
that any place under the sunne doth yielde. Here you may 
both see all manner of fashions of attire, and hear all the 
languages of Christendome, besides those that are spoken 
by the barbarous Ethnickes." ^ In view of the mild con- 
tempt with which most eighteenth-century tourists looked 

295 



ITALY 

upon the church of St. Mark, Coryate's estimate is highly 
suggestive: "Next unto the Duke's Palace the beautifull 
Church of Saint Marke doth of its owne accord as it were 
offer it self now to be spoken off. Which though it be but 
little, yet it is exceeding rich, and so sumptuous for the 
statelenesse of the architecture, that I think very few in 
Christendome of the bignesse doe surpasse it." ^ 

Far more reserved is the praise of a later day. There are, 
indeed, few more illuminating illustrations of the taste of 
the eighteenth century than appear in the comments upon 
St. Mark's. Most travelers speak of it in slighting terms 
and class it with Gothic churches as unworthy of admira- 
tion. Says one: "All this labour and expense have been 
directed by a very moderate share of taste." The seven- 
teenth-century Evelyn found it "much too dark and dis- 
mal, and of heavy work." ^ Burnet observes: "St. Mark's 
church hath nothing to recommend it, but its great an- 
tiquity, and the vast riches of the building." ^ And he is in 
entire accord with travelers for more than a century after 
him. The precious materials employed in the construction 
excite wonder, but there is almost universal condemnation 
of the style. One critic complains, "'Tis pity the design 
was not conducted by a better judgement, and a finer taste 
of architecture; 'tis neither what we call Gothick, nor is 
it regular." ^ De La Lande calls it "neither the largest nor 
the most beautiful church at Venice. It is of a bad Gothic, 
and has almost the air of a fourneau, but it is the most 
adorned, the richest, and the most celebrated of Venice." ^ 
Even the brilliant De Brosses has his fling: " It is a church 
in the Greek style, low, impenetrable to the light, in 
wretched taste both within and without, surmounted by 
seven domes covered with gold mosaic which makes them 
seem far more like chaldrons than cupolas." ^ He goes on 
to say: "One can see nothing so pitiable as these mosaics. 
Happily, the workmen had the wise precaution to inscribe 
on each subject what they wished to represent." ^ Smith 
pronounces St. Mark's Church "perhaps the most dirty 
place of public worship in Europe, except the Jews' syna- 

296 



ITALY 

gogue at Rome; it is at the same time the richest in mate- 
rials and the worst in style." ^ But he is good enough to 
add: 2 "Nevertheless this church is one of the most re- 
markable in Italy for its antiquity and riches, though so 
barbarous and inelegant in style." Eustace speaks of its 
"gloomy barbaric magnificence "; ^ and other tourists 
praise it, if at all, with great reserve. 

The relative importance of St. Mark's, in the opinion of 
some travelers, may be seen in the space allotted to it. 
Northall, in his account of Venice, gives ten lines to St. 
Mark's and no praise; ^ while to S. Giorgio Maggiore, or 
at least to the paintings, he allows twenty-four lines.^ In 
Mariana Starke's "Letters from Italy," she devotes five 
and a half lines to St. Mark's and eleven lines to S. Catter- 
ina,^ which most modem tourists leave unvisited, if, in- 
deed, they know of its existence. The Campanile of St. 
Mark's is commonly referred to as graceless, with no 
merit but its height.' 

But the vast proportions of St. Mark's Place and the 
general effect of the magnificent buildings surrounding it 
call forth lavish praise. Tourists never weary of describ- 
ing the sights on the Piazza. Here all Venice poured out to 
see and be seen. "In the evening," says Dr. Moore, "there 
generally is, on St. Mark's Place, such a mixed multitude 
of Jews, Turks, and Christians; lawyers, knaves, and pick- 
pockets; mountebanks, old women, and physicians; 
women of quality, with masks; strumpets barefaced; and,' 
in short, such a jumble of senators, citizens, gondoleers, 
and people of every character and condition, that your 
ideas are broken, bruised, and dislocated in the crowd, in 
such a manner, that you can think, or reflect, on nothing ; yet 
this being a state of mind which many people are fond of, 
the place never fails to be well attended, and, in fine weatheri 
numbers pass a great part of the night there. When the 
piazza is illuminated, and the shops in the adjacent streets 
are lighted up, the whole has a brilliant effect, and as it is 
the custom for the ladies, as well as the gentlemen, to fre- 
quent the cassinos and coffee-houses around, the Place of 

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ITALY 

St. Mark answers all the purposes of either Vauxhall or 
Ranelagh." * 

From scenes like these, so unlike the merrymaking in 
Northern lands, tourists largely made up their estimate 
not merely of Venice, but of Italy — an estimate that did 
scant justice to much of the serious life of the country. But, 
as for Venice, since the Carnival amusements lasted half the 
year,2 strangers might be pardoned for inferring that the 
inhabitants had little of serious import to occupy them. 

V 

Some of the cities already considered possessed remark- 
able attractions, and the same is true of several other cities 
in the low country north of the Apennines and drained by 
the Po. But for most of these we can spare but a word ; for 
some, not even that. 

Piacenza and Cremona deserved more attention than 
they commonly received. But travelers not infrequently 
made an effort to see the tower of the cathedral of 
Cremona which was famous as the loftiest in Italy. When 
traveling on the old ^Emilian Way from Piacenza to Bo- 
logna and beyond, tourists were unlikely to neglect Parma, 
which for its social and other attractions was one of the 
most popular cities of Italy in the eighteenth centtu-y. 
Nugent counted the theater at Parma as the finest in the 
world. Tourists gave much attention to the art treasvires 
of Parma, and in particiilar to the masterpieces of Correggio 
in the cathedral. Reggio and Modena detained for a time 
the leisurely tourist — Modena being celebrated up to 1745 
for its collection of Italian masters, sold in that year to 
become the glory of the Dresden Gallery. But for a pro- 
tracted stay neither city could rival Bologna. To Bologna 
we shall come in a moment. 

Meanwhile, we must glance at one city on the east side 
of Italy in which most travelers were likely to lodge for at 
least a night, and that city was Ferrara. But for Ferrara 
few eighteenth-century travelers have any praise. Sump- 

298 



ITALY 

tuous though many of the ancient palaces were that had 
once been the pride of Italy, the broad, ill-paved streets, 
grass-grown and neglected, and the general air of poverty, 
affected the tourist with melancholy.^ Misson described, 
it as " so poor and desolate that it cannot be viewed without 
compassion." 2 Breval counted it, "next to Pisa, the 
worst inhabited fine town" he ever saw. Baron von 
Archenholz suggested that it might be well to write on the 
gates, "This town is to be let," and Mrs. Piozzi says that 
she was on the point of praising it for its cleanliness, till she 
"reflected that there was nobody to dirty it. I looked half 
an hour before I could find one beggar — a bad accotmt of 
poor Ferrara!"' 

Visitors at Ferrara complained of the bad water;* of 
the swarms of hungry mosquitoes that devoured them by 
day and by night; of the noxious exhalations from the 
lowlands about the city; of the canals that were choked 
and abandoned.^ Matters have much improved in our 
time, but even yet Ferrara is one of the cities that most 
travelers leave with more pleasure than regret. 

On the way to or from Florence one commonly visited 
Bologna, which was counted "the finest and most wealthy 
city in the whole ecclesiastical state." ® Dr. Moore, in- 
deed, goes so far as to say that, "next to Rome itself, 
there is perhaps no town in the world so rich as Bologna." ' 
Among Italian cities Bologna had an enviable reputation 
for culture and for coiu-tesy to strangers. The university 
was thought by tourists to justify a visit to the city even 
if they took no accoimt of other attractions. But these 
were not small. De Brosses preferred on the whole the 
palaces of Bologna to those of Florence.^ In our day 
the art treasures of Bologna, with one or two striking ex- 
ceptions, are counted of secondary importance, but in the 
eighteenth century the works of the Caracci and of Guido 
Reni drew forth warm appreciation from tourists. Mar- 
iana Starke even maintains that one of Annibale Caracci 's 
pictures "may vie with the finest productions of Raffaelle, 
while it surpasses them all in beauty of coloring." ^ 

299 



ITALY 

The people of wealth and quality were notable for 
the zeal with which they studied French literature and 
followed French fashions.' But the Germans had also 
their admirers; and there were two factions, one de- 
voted to the French, the other to the Germans.^ 

What we have noted elsewhere as characteristic of 
Italian manners at the theater was very marked at Bo- 
logna. Chatter went on steadily throughout the opera. 
Ladies conversed in loud tones with their friends in the 
boxes on the opposite side, even shouting to make them- 
selves heard. When they applauded they stood, clap- 
ping their hands and crying, "Bravo! Bravo!" ^ There 
was no lack of society or other entertainment for such 
strangers as cared for it, though there was nothing 
so distinctive about the assemblies of Bologna as to 
call for special comment here. 

VI 

We must move on to Florence, which throughout the 
eighteenth century was regarded as one of the most agree- 
able cities in Europe, and one of the three or four cities of 
Italy that every tourist must visit. Florence has in some 
measure retained in our own day the peculiar charm 
that it had a century and a half ago, though iconoclasts 
have demolished the picturesque walls and towers that 
once encircled the city, and modernized and vulgarized 
more than one exquisite survival of the Middle Ages. 
Eighteenth-century Florence in its external aspect was 
still largely medieval,^ with Renaissance additions. In a 
quiet way one could spend considerable time very de- 
lightfully at Florence. The city had no more than seventy 
thousand inhabitants within the walls,^ but no other 
Italian city except Rome offered so much that was worth 
seeing. The surrounding country, too, was a perpetual 
invitation to drive or to walk. Fiesole, with its wondcrftd 
views across the valley of the Amo, made an attractive 
outing for any clear day. All about Florence the scenery, 

."^oo 



ITALY 

though not tame or flat, had that exquisite finish which 
especially appealed to men of the eighteenth century. 
The people of Tuscany, too, with their soft voices, their 
unaffected good nature, and their obliging manners, made 
the stay of the tourist doubly agreeable. 

Tuscany, with Florence as its chief city, enjoyed far 
more prosperity than most parts of Italy. The inhab- 
itants were industrious and strove to get on in the world. 
Most travelers remark upon the thrift of the Floren- 
tine nobility, who did not disdain to add to their incomes 
by selling their own wines at retail. As a sign they hung 
out an empty flask at the court gates or from one of the 
palace windows.^ Keysler even says that "a nobleman 
often condescends to measure out a yard or half a yard 
of silk without any regret." ^ 

Although taxes bore somewhat heavily upon the people,^ 
living was inexpensive — or at least seemed so to Eng- 
lishmen. Sharp notes that "house rent at Florence is 
still cheaper than at Venice";^ and Mariana Starke says 
that "noble houses, unfurnished, may be hired by the 
year for, comparatively speaking, nothing." ^ On the 
other hand, she remarks: "Good private lodgings are 
dear, unless travellers find their own plate and linen, 
in which case handsome houses may be hired for about 
ten sequins a month." ^ At this rate the rent of a fine 
house would cost about three hundred and fifteen dollars 
a year. We may observe that Sir Horace Mann leased 
the Casa Manetti in the Fondaccio of Santo Spirito for 
a rent of one hundred and twenty scudi annually, and 
occupied it from 1740 until his death in 1786. It was in 
this house that Horace Walpole visited Mann. 

Food was cheap enough: "Price per head for breakfast, 
at a coffee-house, half a paul — price per head for dinner, 
at a Traiteur's, three pauls, bread and wine inclusive. 
There is a German Traiteur who sends a dinner to your 
own house at four pauls a head." ' Another item is sig- 
nificant: "A sedan-chair to the opera-house and back 
again usually costs three pauls; and to pay a morning 

301 



ITALY 

visit, somewhat less; but it is always necessary to make 
the bargain beforehand." ^ 

English travelers, with their keen instinct for personal 
comfort, early discovered these and other advantages 
offered by Florence, and many chose it for a long stay.^ 
What peculiarly commended it to them was its homd- 
like character — even though it was so strangely unlike 
an English city. Of testimonies in praise of Florence there 
is a long array, but we can afford space for no more than 
two or three. The estimate of Breval, as a traveler by 
profession, is entitled to much consideration: "Florence," 
says he, "is the City of the World, next to Rome, where 
a Dilettante may best entertain himself. I once pass'd 
the best Part of a Summer here; and another time an 
whole Winter, yet was scarce a Day without seeing some- 
thing that was in some measure new to me." ^ Horace 
Walpole, whose eulogies were seldom excessive, pro- 
nounced it in 1740 "infinitely the most agreeable of 
all the places he had seen since London";^ and he spent 
fifteen months there. Years afterward it remained for 
him "the loveliest town on earth." ^ Even the censorious 
Dr. Sharp wrote in one of his letters, "Florence, in our 
judgment, will be preferred to all the other cities of Italy 
as a place of residence." ^ 

Time seldom hung heavily at Florence. Besides the 
pleasure of roaming through the old streets ^ and occa- 
sionally picking up a bargain at a pictiu-e dealer's or at a 
bookstall, there were the opportunities to visit the sump- 
tuous palaces of the nobility with their wealth of Re- 
naissance frescoes ; there were notable churches — Santa 
Maria Novella and Or San Michele and Santa Croce and 
a score of others; there were Giotto's Campanile and the 
wonderful bronze doors of the Baptistery and the statues 
of the Loggia dei Lanzi, and, as the crowning glory of 
all, there were the picture galleries, unsiirpassed in Italy. 
Even then gleamed from the walls of the Tribuna the 
pictures that are still the choicest treasures of the UfBzi; 
and in the Tribuna the exquisite Venus de' Medici stood 

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as coyly as she stands to-day. Even then Raphael's 
Leo X and Madonna della Seggiola and the masterpieces 
of Andrea del Sarto could be viewed in the gorgeous 
apartments of the Pitti Palace.^ 

Tourists rightly counted these galleries sufficient in 
themselves to repay the trouble of a journey to Florence. ^ 
One has, indeed, a strange feeling of kinship with the 
tourists of a century or more ago in reading accounts 
of what they saw and did at Florence. The following 
passage might have been written yesterday: "I have, 
generally," says Dr. Moore, "since our arrival at Florence, 
passed two hours every forenoon in the famous gallery. 
Connoisseurs, and those who wish to be thought such, 
remain much longer. But I plainly feel this is enough 
for me." ^ 

If pressed for time, the tourist could easily find a guide 
to show him the sights of the city. Here, as at Rome and 
Venice, there was a certain round of things to do that 
was in a sense obligatory. 

Besides viewing the ordinary sights of Florence, tourists 
of social position commonly saw something of the society 
there. There was at Florence little of the wild whirl of 
Parisian society, but there was much social gayety, par- 
ticularly in the form of conversazioni. Mann in 1769, 
after an experience of nearly thirty years, speaks with 
contempt of the dull weariness and insipidity of these 
entertainments,^ but as English envoy he was bound to 
attend them and to give them himself. One of his chief 
duties, indeed, was to introduce his countrymen to Flor- 
entine society. Nor was this difficult. "The nobility of 
Florence," says Northall, "are in general very civil to 
foreigners; and there are a great many fine ladies among 
them." ^ Hospitality of the more solid English type, 
indeed, was rare. Card assemblies, with light refresh- 
ments — tea, coffee, lemonade and ices — were the rule. 
And although by endless repetition these festivities might 
pall on a man past middle life, they made a pleasant 
break in the round of the tourist who had nothing to oc- 

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ITALY 

cupy his evenings. "The societies at Florence," says 
De La Lande, "are agreeable and easy; it is one of the 
cities of Italy where strangers find most pleasure. . . . 
One sees no jealousy there. Strangers are received by 
everybody";^ and "with more frankness and familiar- 
ity" than is customary in public assemblies in other 
parts of Italy. ^ Yet this freedom had not been character- 
istic of the century just preceding. Misson speaks of the 
uneasiness of the English Resident "under the intolerable 
constraint and eternal ceremonies of this place," and 
also of "the invisibility of the fair sex." ' 

In the eighteenth century many Italians of rank at 
Florence had a peculiarly unsavory reputation for gross 
debauchery.^ This does not, however, appear to have 
prevented them from being agreeable in society,^ for it 
was the fashion to give considerable attention to the 
lighter forms of ctdture. Educated Florentines knew 
not only Italian literature, but, particularly in the second 
half of the century, were fairly well acquainted with 
English and French.^ They kept their minds busy in a 
small way most of the time and combined sociability 
with mild forms of intellectual activity, — about as im- 
portant as the guessing of charades. "The gentlemen 
of Florence," says Wright, "are very sociable in a sober 
way. They have a nightly assembly in a house they 
have taken for that purpose, where the several apart- 
ments are ascertain'd for play or conversation. There 
are persons attending to furnish iced liquors, coffee, 
etc. From hence they go, some to the ladies' assemblies, 
and card tables, some to the academies of the Virtuosi, 
of which there are two: one entitled DeUa Crusca, and 
the other known by the general name of I'Academia 
Fiorentina. We were present one night at the latter: 
the exercise began with a recital of epigrams, and other 
little poems, some in Italian, some in Latin, and they 
were as eager who should repeat first, as the boys are at 
the Westminster election with their extempore verses. 
Then succeeds a performance of another kind. A question 

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ITALY 

is put. One whom they call the sibyl makes answer to 
it in one word, and that a disproposito (as they call it); 
somewhat that seems foreign to the purpose: then the 
expositors of the sibyl are to reconcile this disproposito 
answer to the question given; as for example, a question 
was put, Whether 'tis more wholesome to sleep much or 
little ? — The sibyl answer'd Sugar. The expositor added, 
— As sugar is differently proportioned to suit with differ- 
ent tastes, so is sleep, to suit with different constitu- 
tions: some requiring more, some less. 2. Why Myopes 
(the short-sighted) hold the object 'near, Preshytcs (the 
old) hold it at a distance? Sibyl: Hair. — The expositor 
compar'd a lock of hair to the assemblage of capilla- 
ments or fibres in the optick nerve; whose expansion 
within the bottom of the eye makes the tunica retina; 
then he went on to explain how the image of an object 
is formed on the retina, in the convex eye, and the fiat 
eye, in the usual way." ^ 

For most English guests a little of this childishness 
wotdd be more than enough. And repeated experiences 
with this form of entertainment might well prompt such 
a remark as Walpole in 1746 puts into a letter to Horace 
Mann: "I agree to the happiness of living in Florence, 
but I am sure knowledge was not one of its recommen- 
dations, which never was anywhere at a lower ebb." ^ 

Like all the larger cities of Italy, Florence had a regular 
season of opera.^ One thing insisted on was, however, 
that the music should not interfere with conversation. 
There was a continual exchange of compliments in loud 
tones, and a continual moving from one side of the 
theater to the other throughout the performance. Only 
the dancers might count upon receiving any attention 
from the audience. 

During their stay at Florence most English tourists, 
with no great effort, unquestionably learned much of 
lasting value, yet the seductive charm of the place made 
the life of many who sojourned there little more than a 
round of pleasure. The poet Gray and his companion 

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ITALY 

Walpole give some indication in letters to West of how 
time was spent. Writing from Florence in Jtdy, 1740, 
Gray says: "If you choose to be annihilated too, you 
cannot do better than undertake this journey. Here 
you shall get up at twelve o'clock, breakfast till three, 
dine till five, sleep till six, drink cooling liquors till eight, 
go to the bridge till ten, sup till two, and so sleep till 
twelve again." ^ And Walpole in his turn: "You would 
be as much amazed at us as at any thing you saw : instead of 
being deep in the liberal arts, and being in the Gallery 
every morning, as I thought of course to be sure I would 
be, we are in all the idleness and amusements of the town." ^ 
After fifty years of absence Horace Walpole still looked 
back with fond recollection to "the delicious nights on 
the Ponte di Trinita at Florence, in a linen night-gown 
and a straw hat, with improvisatori, and music, and the 
coffee-houses open with ices." ^ 

With this catalogue of occupations before us, we are 
prepared for Gray's confession to West in a letter of 1741 : 
"Eleven months, at different times, have I passed at Flor- 
ence; and yet (God help me) know not either people 
or language." * But we may well believe that the record 
of most tourists was less satisfactory than Gray's. 

Whether for amusement or for earnest self -improvement, 
Florence was throughout the eighteenth century, in 
ever increasing measure, a favorite resort for tourists 
and a center for excursions. In the region about Florence 
the celebrated abbey of Vallombrosa, with its forests 
of chestnuts, beeches, and firs, offered an easy excursion 
that might occupy three or four days, and in the eighteenth 
century it was often visited; for, as Horace Walpole 
says, " Milton has made everybody wish to have seen it." ^ 
Walpole himself, however, confessed that though he was 
many months at Florence he "never did see it. In fact," 
says he, "I was so tired of seeing when I was abroad, that 
I have several of these pieces of repentance on my con- 
science, when they come into my head." ^ And Wal- 
pole is a type of hundreds of other tourists. 

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ITALY 

Hardly less attractive in our day appears the excursion 
to the monasteries of Camaldoli and La Vema, but most 
eighteenth-century tourists could hardly appreciate the 
wild charm of the scenery, and at all events did not flock 
thither in great numbers. 

VII 

Although, as we have seen, many tourists approached 
Florence from Bologna, those who followed the sea route 
to Italy commonly disembarked at Leghorn and went 
through Pisa and Lucca to the Tuscan capital. The most 
notable port on the west coast of Italy was Leghorn. Eng- 
lish merchants were there with their families in considerable 
numbers, and English ships carried on a flourishing trade. 
The population rose from forty-four thousand in 1767 to 
fifty-eight thousand in 1781, about one sixth of whom 
were Jews. Northall says, indeed, that Leghorn "has al- 
most unpeopled Pisa, if we compare it to what it was for- 
merly, and every day lessens the number of inhabitants at 
Florence." ^ 

Owing to their skill as traders the English held the fore- 
most place among the foreigners at Leghorn, their chief 
rivals being the Dutch. As early as 1730 there were thirty- 
six resident English families out of a population of about 
forty thousand,^ and they were greatly respected. The 
constant communication with England made Leghorn a 
convenient port of entry and departure for those English 
tourists who did not object to a long sea voyage. And since 
at Leghorn they found many of the inhabitants speaking 
English tolerably well, they felt at once at home. But 
apart from commercial interests there was little to tempt 
strangers to remain long, and they moved on to other cities. 

Those who sought quiet found it, if anywhere, at Pisa. 
Once a powerful city of a hundred and fifty thousand in- 
habitants, Pisa was reduced in the eighteenth century to 
be a provincial town of a tenth its former size. The low 
situation upon the river Arno was thought to render "its 

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ITALY 

air very unwholesome and obnoxious to strangers." Hun- 
dreds of houses stood empty, and grass grew in the streets. 
The Earl of Cork and Orrery wrote in 1754: "In my last 
I told you, that we had thoughts of settling here. It is im- 
possible. If either house, victuals, or even necessaries were 
to be had in Pisa, we should be glad to remain in this city; 
but in its present state, cameleons only can inhabit it. 
Horses indeed may graze and fatten in the streets. Human 
creatures, unless they are Italians, cannot find lodgings or 
subsistence." ^ 

Not till the closing years of the eighteenth century did the 
increase of trade and population banish the desolation that 
hung like a pall over the city. Early in the nineteenth 
century more than one English family selected Pisa as a 
favorite abode. The Shelley s were exceedingly fond of the 
place ; and here Byron took a house and shared it with Leigh 
Hunt and his overflowing family. 

But even in its lowest depression tourists visited Pisa in 
considerable numbers. Evelyn thought the city "as much 
worth seeing as any in Italy." ^ In the opinion of De 
Brosses there were nowhere else to be found within so 
small a space four things handsomer than the four at Pisa 
— the Campo Santo, the cathedral, the Baptistery, and the 
Leaning Tower. Especially does he count the cathedral 
a noble and beautiful church.^ But eighteenth-century 
English travelers were inclined to speak slightingly of Pisa. 
Clenche says that "it has nothing else remarkable except 
the Camposanto." ^ The Earl of Cork and Orrery finds 
the Cathedral "dark and gloomy, . . . disgustful to the 
eye upon the first entrance into it." ^ Pisa was, indeed, so 
generally neglected or inadequately treated by English trav- 
elers in their accounts that Mariana Starke at the end of 
the eighteenth century offers that as her excuse for giving 
"rather a minute description of the city," ^ which we need 
not reproduce. 

But we must spare a few words for Lucca. The little city 
of Lucca had the reputation of being very civil to strangers 
and also of being very cheap. Moreover, the Italian spoken 

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ITALY 

there was unusually pure. Add to these attractions the 
works of art and architecture within the walls, the beauti- 
ful promenade round the ramparts, and the charming coun- 
try surrounding the city, and one can understand why 
travelers often preferred Lucca to Florence itself. Most 
of the gentlemen of Lucca spoke French in Misson's day, 
and the ladies were "not so invisible as in several other 
parts of Italy." i Numerous quaint customs persisted. 
"Strangers never fail," says Keysler, "to be welcomed here 
with an evening serenade, which is accompanied with an 
humble intimation that they would be pleased to make some 
returns for such an honour." ^ 

One is tempted to enlarge upon the charms of Lucca and 
its environs, including the famous Baths; to touch upon 
other cities like Prato, Pistoia, and Arezzo, with their 
notable works of art, but it is time to follow the tourist on 
his way down to Rome.^ 

The first place of any importance after leaving Florence 
was Siena. This was an exceptionally attractive little 
city, prevailingly medieval in its architectiu-e, and counting 
eighteen or twenty thousand inhabitants." Living at 
Siena was very inexpensive; the people were "learned, 
amiable, and remarkably kind to f oreigners " ; ^ besides 
being reputed brilliant conversationalists.^ The town was 
"also famous for the piu-ity of the Italian tongue, which," 
says Nugent, "is spoken here without that guttural pro- 
nunciation so disagreeable in the Florentines. For this 
reason a great many foreigners choose to reside here some 
time to learn the language rather than at Florence, where 
it is badly pronounced, or at Rome, where you have too 
much hurry and noise." ^ 

Notably enough, most visitors to Siena lay aside their 
usual prejudice against Gothic architecture long enough 
to praise the cathedral as an architectural monument of 
the greatest magnificence. De La Lande says that "one 
could view it with pleasure even after having seen St. 
Peter's." « A typical estimate is Breval's: "The most re- 
markable thing we meet with at Siena is the Dome; of a 

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ITALY 

Gothic Stile indeed, but very beautiful in its kind, and 
would be still more so in my Opinion, were the Marble all 
of one Colour." ^ It is interesting to observe that even 
before 1700 the unique inlaid pavement of the cathedral 
was so esteemed that portions of it were "covered with 
boards to preserve it." ^ Travelers rarely fail to mention 
this pavement as one of the most beautiful works of art to 
be seen in Italy. 

On the other hand, the wonderfully picturesque com- 
munal palace, with its many works of medieval art, is dis- 
missed by Keysler as "scarce worth seeing," ^ and by De 
Brosses as "an old building which has nothing recom- 
mendable, or at least curious, except some paintings still 
more antique and more ugly than itself." ^ Tourists of the 
eighteenth century were certainly not prepared to do full 
justice to a medieval city like Siena, but the charm of the 
place insensibly stole into the spirit of more than one who 
sojourned there, and contributed in its measure to the revo- 
lution in taste that slowly worked itself out before the end 
of the century. 

The journey from Siena to Rome was not wholly de- 
lightful, though tourists were loud in their praise of the 
country as far as Buonconvento. Most of the inns were 
bad. Tourists were advised to take wine and water at 
Siena for the rest of the way, "both being excellent here 
and unwholesome in the succeeding towns." ^ At Acqua- 
pendente the "first lascia passare used to be demanded," 
and if the tourist happened not to have one his "baggage 
underwent a very unpleasant examination." ^ The route 
passed through Viterbo, but hurried travelers commonly 
ignored the ancient city and even the exqiiisite Villa Lante 
in the environs. 

Rome was reached by crossing the pestilential and 
dreaded Campagna. To spend the night on this vast, un- 
wholesome plain was thought to be hazardous for strangers,' 
and, accordingly, the wayside inns, from lack of patron- 
age, were of the poorest type, even when measured by 
Italian standards. When Sharp went to Rome, "we found 

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ITALY 

it necessary," says he, "to keep our post-horses all night 
at a shabby inn, half-way to the post-house before you 
arrive slx, the Campania, as preferring dirty beds and 
dirty provisions, to no beds, no provisions, and a sup- 
posed pestilential climate," ^ 

VIII 

Unquestioned as the claim of Paris was to preeminence 
in matters of fashion and taste, even Paris was, to most 
tourists, in the variety of its attractions, not in the same 
class with Rome; and at certain seasons, particularly 
Carnival and Holy Week, Rome was alive with English 
sight-seers. Writing from Venice, January 20, 1758, Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu says, "I hear Rome is crammed 
with Britons. I suppose we shall see them all in their 
turns." 2 De Brosses incidentally remarks upon "the 
English, with whom Rome is always filled." ^ And Lady 
Knight, writing in 1778, says, "There are many English 
here, and many more are expected for the Holy Week."* 
In a later letter she remarks: "The English are birds of 
passage, most of them have taken their flight, but when I 
first came we have been sixty together of an evening." ^ 
Fourteen years later she writes, "We have had a hundred 
and fifty English here this spring." ^ 

They felt doubly at home there, for, as Ray already in 
the seventeenth century remarked, "The inhabitants . , . 
approach nowadays, in their fiunitures and some of their 
manners and customs, more to the English than any of the 
Italians besides"; ^ and this penchant for things English 
became far more pronounced in the course of the eight- 
eenth century. At Rome, more than in most Continental 
cities, the English were able to get the things they required. 
There was even an English coffee-house where they could 
see English newspapers and meet their fellow countr5nmen, 
particularly artists.^ Sharp commends the English students 
of painting and sculpture at Rome as "a remarkable set of 
sober, modest men, who by their decorum, and friendly 

311 



ITALY 

manner of living amongst one another, do credit to their 
profession." * 

With the flood of English tourists it was no easy matter 
to escape one's fellow countrymen at Rome. They lodged 
in the same quarter of the city, they went to see the same 
sights, and they thus constantly crossed one another's 
paths. But tourists were not limited to association with 
their own countrymen. One cannot say that all doors 
stood open to them, but in general they were very freely 
received. The people of Rome were noted for their cordial- 
ity,2 and they even sought out strangers who had been 
recommended to them by letters.' The ordinarily fault- 
finding Sharp finds "the politeness of the Italians towards 
our nation . . . very extraordinary." * James Edward 
Smith observes that the "English in particular meet with 
the kindest attentions, and a flattering sort of deference, 
quite distinct from French cringing, from persons of all 
ranks." * Particularly were the English welcome at the 
palaces of the nobility and of the cardinals. Of the palace 
of the Princess Borghese, De Brosses remarks that it is 
"the ordinary place of meeting of the English, who are 
here in great numbers, most of them very rich." ^ 

General as this hospitality was at Rome, it laid no heavy 
burden of expense upon the host, since the cost of the eat- 
ables at a conversazione was but a trifle, and strangers were 
rarely if ever invited to meals ' or to participation in the 
inner home life. Some tourists, perhaps not wholly with- 
out reason, attributed the frugality of the Italian type of 
hospitality, so unlike the German or the English, to mean- 
ness. But it is worth while to present the Italian point of 
view: "Italians prefer to build a great palace, to collect 
pictures, to rear a lasting monument of some sort, rather 
than to waste incomes none too large in the expense of 
trivial entertainments." * 

We must not linger upon this aspect of the life at Rome, 
but must get a closer view of the city itself — and first of 
some of its obvious defects. In the Rome of a century and 
a half ago there were, of course, fewer brilliant shops than 

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ITALY 

there are now; the hotels were far less pretentious; the 
street pavements were less clean. The streets where the 
Pope passed through were swept, the others never. ^ More- 
over, although there was no police patrol at night, the 
streets were not lighted, except by the candles and lamps 
that burned before the madonnas,^ or by an occasional 
lantern at the corner of some palace. "But in many 
streets," says Tivaroni, "the darkness was perfect, and the 
few that ventured to pass through the streets went with 
lanterns carried by themselves or by well-armed servants." ' 

Defects of all sorts there unquestionably were,^ but not- 
withstanding all these Rome had an abiding charm and 
popularity. Here, if anywhere, the tourist was awakened 
to an interest in ancient art and architecture and the his- 
tory of the great past, and here he met notable people from 
all over the world. In Rome, too, his morals were safer 
than almost anywhere else.^ The spell of the Eternal City 
worked most powerfully upon Englishmen of widest cul- 
ture. For them Rome, even in ruins, was still, in a sense, 
the august capital of the Empire, and still the mistress of 
the world. 

The visitor from the North very commonly got his first 
sweeping view of the city from the height overlooking the 
Vatican and the dome of St. Peter's and then descended the 
long slope to the usual entrance. "Most English gentle- 
men," says Northall, "enter at the gate of Porta del Popolo 
in post-chaises, and drive down the Corso to the Dogana, or 
custom-house, which was made out of the hall of Antoni- 
nus Pius. ... As soon as they arrive, there are people on 
purpose who attend to unload the baggage, which is carried 
into the Dogana, and opened by proper officers, who soon 
begin to tumble the things about, under a pretence of 
searching to the bottom for contraband goods ; but a small 
present prevents any insolence of that sort." ® 

This formality over, one drove without delay to the 

strangers' quarter — the Piazza di Spagna^ and the streets 

leading from it.^ Here were the principal hotels and 

lodging-houses that _ catered to English tastes.^ Here, 

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ITALY 

too, were the banks and the shops especially frequented 
by Englishmen. " The ambassador of Spain at Rome exer- 
cised a royal jurisdiction in the Piazza di Spagna and in the 
neighborhood, which became for that reason the safest and 
quietest quarters of the city." ^ 

Smollett supplies some interesting detail: "Strangers 
that come to Rome seldom put up at public inns, but go 
directly to lodging houses, ofj which there is great plenty 
in this quarter. The Piazza d'Espagna is open, airy, and 
pleasantly situated in a high part of the city immediately 
under the Colle ^ Pinciana, and adorned with two fine 
fountains. Here most of the English reside : the apartments 
are generally commodious and well furnished; and the 
lodgers are well supplied with provisions and all necessa- 
ries of life. But, if I studied economy, I would choose 
another part of the town than the Piazza d'Espagna, 
which is besides at a great distance from the antiquities."^ 

But the Piazza di Spagna had won its undisputed posi- 
tion as the common meeting-place for strangers. "Here 
the ladies," says Northall, "sit at their ease in their coaches, 
and receive the homage of the gentlemen standing at their 
coach-doors. Thus an hour or two is spent every evening, 
in breathing the worst air in Rome, mixed with clouds of 
dust, pestered with beggars, and incommoded by coaches, 
which press forward without observing rank or order." ^ 

But we must glance at other features, and first at the 
size of the Papal capital. A century and a half ago Rome 
was a city of only about 170,000 inhabitants^ — not so 
large as to be oppressive or so small as to be insignificant, 
though it occupied only a portion of the vast area enclosed 
by the walls of Aurelian. In the seventeenth centiu*y Ray ^ 
estimated the population at 120,000 souls, the city being 
surpassed in size by Venice, Milan, and Naples. The Rome 
of our day has far outgrown the modest area that it occu- 
pied in the eighteenth century, and has greatly altered in 
other particulars. Many great buildings remain sub- 
stantially the same; but, unfortunately for the artist and 
the lover of the picturesque, the growth of the city within 

314 



ITALY 

the memory of men still comparatively young has trans- 
formed the setting and changed the entire spirit of the 
place. Modem Rome is a city no longer dormant and 
dreamy, but a bustling modem capital. The site of more 
than one exquisite villa, with its ample grounds, has been 
occupied by commonplace and pretentious modem apart- 
ment houses. In many quarters the old Papal Rome of 
the eighteenth century, with its gorgeous street pageants 
and its grim palaces festooned with scarlet and gold, has 
given place to a new city, more prosperous and progres- 
sive, but also somewhat more vulgarized. At all events, 
the comparative isolation of Rome, as it was before the 
coming of the railway and the motor-car, has vanished 
forever. 

How agreeable the old city was we may learn from a 
thousand sources; for the glamour of the city of the Cae- 
sars, with its half -destroyed and half -buried monuments, 
stirred the imagination of even the average tourist, and 
led him to record his impressions. Nearly all the travel- 
ers of the older day had at least a thin veneer of clas- 
sical learning, and they united in sounding the praises of 
the city of which every one had heard since the days of 
childhood. 

Visitors of every type found the city attractive. "Rome 
has the air of a provincial city," says De Brosses; but, 
he immediately adds, "I do not know, everything con- 
sidered, whether there is any other city in Europe more 
agreeable, more comfortable, and that I would rather 
live in, than this, not even excepting Paris." ^ Baretti 
cites the estimate of Middleton that "of all the places 
he has ever seen, or ever shall see, . . . Rome is by far 
the most delightful, because travellers there find them- 
selves accommodated with all the conveniences of life 
in an easy manner; because of the general civility and 
respect shown to strangers, and because there every 
man of prudence is sure to find quiet and security." ^ 

There was, indeed, something at Rome that satisfied al- 
most every stranger. The antiquary took his pleasure in 

31S 



ITALY 

exploring nuns; the artist in visiting the galleries and in 
sketching groups of peasants standing beside broken 
arches; the religious pilgrim in haunting famous churches 
and securing an audience with the Pope ; the casual stranger 
in frequenting conversazioni and balls; and the historian in 
studying the varied fortunes of the imperial city. Well 
might Goethe say: "Of the four months I have spent 
in Rome not a moment has been lost." * 

It is true that Rome, like most of Italy, presented 
singiilar contradictions. Mariana Starke remarks upon 
the great buildings and the treasures of art that "entitle 
her to be called the most magnificent city of Europe." 
But she adds, "her streets, nevertheless, are ill-paved 
and dirty; while ruins of immense edifices, which con- 
tinually meet the eye, give an impression of melancholy 
to every thinking spectator." ^ 

Commerce was insignificant, and the main revenue of 
the inhabitants was derived from perfumery, pomades, 
flowers, pictures, and the curiosity of strangers.^ In 
her diminished prosperity Rome shared the decay of all 
Italy, and, says Dupaty, had more beggars than any other 
city.* 

The decline of imperial Rome was a favorite theme of 
eighteenth-century poets, as it had been for generations 
before.^ And the ordinary tourist was, in this matter, 
in entire accord with the poets: "A man on his first arrival 
at Rome," says Dr. Sharp, "is not much fired with its 
appearance; the narrowness of the streets, the thinness 
of the inhabitants, the prodigious quantity of monks 
and beggars, give but a gloomy aspect to this renowned 
city. There are no rich tradesmen here, who, by their 
acquisitions, either enoble their sons, or marry their 
daughters into the houses of princes. All the shops seem 
empty, and the shop keepers poor; not one hackney 
coach in so large a town. . . . This is the first impression; 
but turn your eye from that point of view, to the magni- 
ficence of their churches, to the venerable remains of 
ancient Rome, to the prodigious collection of pictures 

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ITALY 

and antique statues, . , . and, with a very few grains 
of enthusiasm in your composition, you will feel more 
than satisfied." ^ 

Hazlitt's reflections in 1824 might have been written a 
century earlier: "In Rome, around it, nothing strikes the 
eye, nothing rivets the attention but ruins, the fragments 
of what has been; the past is like a halo forever surround- 
ing and obscuring the present! Ruins should be seen 
in a desert, Hke those of Palmyra, and a pilgrimage should 
be made to them ; but who would take up his abode among 
tombs? Or if there be a country and men in it, why 
have they nothing to shew but the relics of antiquity, 
or why are the living contented to crawl about like worms, 
or to hover like shadows in the monuments of the dead? 
Every object he sees reminds the modem Roman that 
he is nothing — the spirits of former times overshadow 
him, and dwarf his pigmy efforts: every object he sees 
reminds the traveller that greatness is its own grave." ^ 

Eighteenth-century Rome was, indeed, in large meas- 
ure a survival of an earlier age. Uninvaded by commer- 
cialism, it was hardly touched by the modem spirit. Of 
pubHc opinion there was scarcely a trace. The paternal 
hand of the Papal Government was everjrwhere felt. 
But the real objection to the government was not that 
it was Papal but that it was sadly inefficient. Even De 
Brosses, who, on the whole, prefers Rome to Paris, says, 
"The govemment is the worst possible. Of the pop- 
ulation a quarter are priests, a quarter are statues, a 
quarter are people who do nothing. There is no agricul- 
ture, no commerce, no machinery, in the midst of a fertile 
country and on a navigable river." ^ 

Although Rome was, above everything else, a Papal 
city and under ecclesiastical rule, as long as Protestant 
visitors held their tongues and did not meddle with poli- 
tics, they were quite undisturbed. Even in the seventeenth 
century Ray remarks upon the tolerance of the ItaHans: 
"They do also shew their civility to strangers in not so 
much as asking them what religion they are of, avoiding 

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all unnecessary disputes about that subject, which are 
apt to engender quarrels; which thing we could not but 
take notice of, because in France you shall scarce ex- 
change three words with any man before he asks you that 
question." ^ And a close observer remarks that even in 
the Capella Paolina, affording room for but a score of 
visitors, "Toleration extends here so far, that in this most 
solemn service, when all the cardinals and the pope himself 
were prostrate before the altar, some Swiss protestants re- 
frained from kneeling, and gave no offence . " ^ At all events , 
Protestants were subjected to no "rudeness or compulsion, 
which, it is notorious, is practiced in the chapel at Versailles. 
In Lent, and on other fast or meager days, the protestants 
never fail of meeting with butcher's meat, etc., at the inns 
and taverns, without being at the trouble to proctire a 
license for eating it." ^ But even toleration has its limits. 
An eccentric Englishman had the boldness one day to run 
up the steps in the center of the Scala Santa, which the 
devout ascend only upon their knees, "but he was soon 
called down with great indignation; his conduct was ex- 
cused on the supposition of ignorance only." ^ 

In any case, prudence in speech was the part of wisdom.^ 
"In most of the coffee-houses," says Northall, "there are 
a set of seemingly social and obliging persons, who have 
the appearance of gentlemen, and insinuate themselves 
into the company of strangers, who cannot be too much 
on their guard against them, as they are only spies for 
the inquisition." For "the least word against their re- 
ligion or government,"^ the incautious stranger "will 
have an order to depart the city in twenty-four hours, 
and sometimes in twelve, on pain of inquisitorial im- 
prisonment." ^ Even until late in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, as Trevelyan reminds us, "In Rome the priest, the 
spy, and the foreigner were the masters before whom 
all must tremble for long years to come." ^ 

Notwithstanding the spies, the general attitude of the 
Church towards foreigners, we are told, was "very prudent, 
from the consideration that they enrich the city by ex- 

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ITALY 

pending great sums of money here annually, so that 
they are not strictly attended to." ^ Yet the Church was 
very slow to give formal sanction to heretical worship 
within the walls of Rome. "Even the English in the 
hey-day of their power and reputation on the Continent," 
says Trevelyan, "were not allowed a church in Rome, 
but had to be content to worship in a church outside 
the Porta del Popolo." ^ The English appear to have 
taken good-naturedly enough the exclusion of Protes- 
tant services from the Papal city. They must have re- 
membered that the attitude toward Catholics in English 
cities of the eighteenth century was anything but cordial. 

Protestants though most Englishmen were, many of 
them arranged to be presented to the Pope. The seven- 
teenth-century Evelyn tells us: "I was presented to kiss 
his toe, that is, his embroidered slipper, two cardinals 
holding up his vest and surplice: and then, being suffi- 
ciently blessed with his thumb and two fingers for that 
day, I returned home to dinner." ^ A century and a 
quarter later Dr. Moore witnessed the same ceremony, 
"under the auspices of a certain ecclesiastic who usually 
attends the English on such occasions." * Tourists who 
were not presented at the Vatican might, nevertheless, 
easily "get a glimpse of His Holiness giving a benediction 
from his balcony to the people assembled in the great 
open place before the church of St. Peter," ^ or see him 
pass in state through the streets. "Everywhere the 
Pope goes," says De La Lande, "the streets are strewn 
with green, all the bells are rung, and every one kneels 
to receive his blessing,^ not rising until he has passed. 
Those who do not wish to kneel or to descend from their 
carriages are compelled to pass into another street." ^ 

There were numerous other spectacles to delight the eye. 
The Carnival season drew to Rome a great concourse of 
English tourists who watched the riderless horses racing 
every day but Friday ^ in the Corso, and the thousand 
fantastic disguises that filled the streets. To escape 
attention, the Englishman like the rest generally wore 

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ITALY 

a mask and a domino. Now and then he might see his 
countrymen caricatured in dress and manner, especially 
in their fashion of handshaking, which appealed to the 
Italian sense of humor. ^ And he might count himself 
fortunate if he escaped being blinded with a handful of 
confetti. For at this season, says Moore, "the greatest 
mark of respect you can show your friends and acquaint- 
ances is to throw a handful of little white balls, resem- 
bling sugar-plums, full in their faces." ^ In the Carnival 
time Rome was ablaze with processions, with magnificent 
carriages filled with gayly-dressed cavaliers and ladies, 
all a-glitter with jewels. The dome of St. Peter's was 
illuminated. There were masked balls. There were 
diversions in the flooded Piazza Navone. 

The expense of much of the popular merry-making was 
trifling, and almost necessarily so, for, as already re- 
marked, there was little commercial business at Rome, and 
much poverty among the masses. But there was great 
wealth in the Chiirch and in the hands of a few noble 
families, and as a natural result there was often lavish 
display. "The cardinals set the example of a great 
luxury, and the nobility vied with them in displaying 
their own riches in vessels of silver and gold, in dam- 
asks, tapestries, pottery of great price, horses, carriages, liv- 
eries." ^ " The magnificence of the great families of Rome," 
says De La Lande, "consists principally in having vast 
palaces, many pages, running footmen, lackeys, horses, 
carriages, costly pictures, and beautiful ancient and mod- 
ern statues."^ But he significantly adds: "These rich 
houses are very rare, even among the princes." 

A stranger who sought recognition in high society was 
obliged in some measure to do as the Romans did in 
conforming to social laws. He might walk in the morning, 
but after dinner, when the fine carriages began to move 
up and down the Corso, he would hardly venture to ap- 
pear there on foot.^ The long street was then so crowded 
with carriages moving in opposite directions that a 
pedestrian could hardly pass from one side to the other. 

320 , 



ITALY 

What the tourist did at Rome we cannot undertake to 
follow in detail. The great sights as enumerated by eight- 
eenth-century travelers are in the main those of our 
time, though within the past two or three generations there 
has been woeful destruction of choice bits of medieval 
and Renaissance architecture, as well as extensive dis- 
covery of the remains of the ancient world. 

The eighteenth century was an age of superficial en- 
thusiasm for antiquity, and every visitor to Rome duly 
made the rounds of the more important ruins. But there 
had been little excavation. The Coliseum was filled 
with debris; the Palatine Hill was covered with gardens, 
and unexplored; the arches of the theater of Marcellus 
were blocked up and inhabited by scores of poor tenants; 
the Forum was every Thursday and Friday a market 
for cows and oxen,^ which wandered past the column of 
Phocas and the half-buried arch of Severus. How differ- 
ent, indeed, the Forum was from the place we know to- 
day, excavated as it is to the level of prehistoric Rome, 
we may see in any eighteenth-century description. Says 
De La Lande, "The place Campo Vaccino, of which we 
have said that the Forum made a part, is much larger 
than the ancient place, since it extends as far as the temple 
of Peace. It takes in a large part of the ancient sacred 
way, and is to-day rather a field than a place. Trees 
have been planted in the middle, but they are old and 
without symmetry. A fountain has been placed there, 
with a handsome granite basin, but it serves only to 
water cattle. Some fagades of modem churches are 
seen, but the principal part of this vast space presents 
nothing but ruins." ^ 

But although ancient Rome was only partially disin- 
terred, the city as a whole offered, even in the eighteenth 
century, so much for examination and study that no 
transient visitor could view it very thoroughly, par- 
ticularly if he gave some attention to society. Many Eng- 
lish tourists, it is true, cared little for art, yet as a part 
of their duty while on the Continent, they spent much of 

321 . 



ITALY 

their time in "looking after fine statues, the pictures 
of great masters, medals, bronzes, and other curios." * 
"At Rome," observes De La Lande, "everybody busies 
himself with pictures and pretends to know them. Many 
people live by this traffic, particularly with the strangers." ^ 

The ordinary plan of the sight-seer was to spend the 
morning in visiting antiquities and collections of paint- 
ings.^ After an early dinner one slept till six.'* In the 
evening one gave one's self up to amusement.^ Even 
Smollett made the round of the galleries. "If I was 
silly enough to make a parade," says he, "I might men- 
tion some hundred more of marbles and pictures, which 
I really saw at Rome, and even eke out that number 
with a huge list of those I did not see."" One of the 
greatest of the galleries was the famous Borghese col- 
lection, comprising "seventeen hundred original pictures, 
which arc reckoned worth several millions of money." ^ 

These and other sights one might view in a casual way 
with no comprehensive programme in hand. But Rome, 
more than any other city of Italy, demanded special 
preparation of the sight-seer. There was a conventional 
list of things to do. Misson enumerates forty-eight classes 
of objects that the conscientious tourist should endeavor 
to view.^ He presents also an alphabetical list of the 
one hundred and seven most notable palaces of Rome,'' 
with their situation,^" and adds seventy-one more in an 
uncommcntcd list, ending with an "etc." 

But, to aid in selecting the most important, he recom- 
mends that "a traveller who intends not to stay above 
two or three months at Rome should immediately after 
his arrival chuse a skilful antiquary, and fix certain times 
with him to visit the principal rarities of that famous 
city." ^^ "What is called a regular course with an Anti- 
quarian," says Dr. Moore, "generally takes up about six 
weeks; employing three hours a day, you may, in that 
time, visit all the churches, palaces, villas, and ruins, 
worth seeing, in or near Rome."^'^ 

Some of the antiquaries appear to have given very good 

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ITALY 

satisfaction. On June i8, 1768, the young Earl of Carlisle 
writes to Sclwyn: "I shall have finished Rome in three 
weeks more, so as to have seen everything perfectly, 
and the principal things twice or three times. I am out 
on this business seven or eight hours a day, which, for 
a continuance, would be very fatiguing to any one less 
eager than myself. My ciceroni [!] here, Mr. Harrison, 
who is a very good man, and a very instructing one in 
a particular branch of knowledge, was to have set out 
for England when I had finished Rome. As I should 
otherwise have been alone till I had met Charles at Stras- 
burgh, I shall make him go with me. We shall see a great 
many places together on oiu: way, particularly Perugia, 
Venice, Verona, Padua, etc., etc., which will make this 
journey much more agreeable to me." ^ 

But the multiplication of tourists called into existence 
a swarm of local guides whose competence left much 
to be desired. Most of these fellows spoke English, or 
what by courtesy passed for English, and with undaunted 
confidence they fastened themselves upon the tourist, 
often before he had alighted at his inn, offering to ex- 
plain everything worth seeing in the city.^ Against 
these cormorants travelers were repeatedly warned: 
"There are," says Northall, "a set of people in Rome 
distinguished by the appellation of Antiquarians, who 
offer themselves to strangers of quality, to serve them 
as guides in surveying the curiosities of the place. Too 
many of our young English noblemen have been de- 
ceived and imposed upon by these persons, especially 
if not competent judges in paintings and antiquities. 
These Antiquarians will make such novices believe a copy 
to be an original of Raphael, Angelo, Titian, or some 
other great master, which they purchase at an extrava- 
gant price, and procure a handsome premium from both 
buyer and seller." ^ 

Most of these so-called guides were, indeed, impudent 
charlatans, who, relying upon their knowledge of local 
topography, obtruded their ignorance of art, architecture, 

2>^Z 



ITALY 

and history upon travelers in search of trustworthy in- 
formation, and by mumbling over the rigmaroles that 
they had learned destroj'^ed half the pleasure of one's 
sight-seeing. Breval speaks feelingly of the incompe- 
tence of the official conductors of parties through the 
Vatican. "It is a discouraging Enterprize to digest in my 
Head, for Instance, all that I have seen in only one 
Afternoon's Visit to the Vatican, especially as I have 
put myself under the Conduct of an ignorant subor- 
dinate Officer, or Groom, of the Chambers, whose Busi- 
ness it is to earn his Testoon as fast as he can, and hiu-ry 
away to the next Set of Customers." ^ And Duclos re- 
marks that most of the ciccrones at Rome were no better 
than the valets of the hotels garnis at Paris that showed 
the city to strangers.^ 

Tourists of some independence might dispense alto- 
gether with professional guides and rely upon the tourist 
hand-books — Misson's or Nugcnt's or De La Lande's — 
or one of the numerous local guide-books.^ Even when one 
hired an antiquary, such an aid was worth while. "The 
usual method," says Northall, "is to purchase a little use- 
ful book, called, a guide to strangers, which points out and 
describes most of the places and curiosities in and about 
Rome." " 

Critical tourists followed the advice of Nugent: "'Tis 
proper also to be provided with maps, measures, prospec- 
tive glasses, a mariner's compass and quadrant, and to be 
able to take the dimensions of things." ^ Commonly, no 
great result followed the use of this learned apparatus, but 
the tourist could flatter himself that he was engaged in 
original antiquarian research, and he could at all events 
give thereby a learned air to his notebook. 

We must, indeed, not forget that by far the larger pro- 
portion of the visitors to Rome were pleasure-seekers, who 
were ready to give themselves considerable trouble to see the 
sights included in the usual round, but who were consider- 
ably relieved when their labors were at an end. With 
rare exceptions, the young fellows who were making the 

324 



ITALY 

grand tour under the guidance of a tutor brought no 
critical insight into what they saw, and they carried away 
from Rome a confused memory of drives through a laby- 
rinth of narrow streets, of visits to a host of churches and 
museums and galleries, of dull conversazioni, where they 
could understand only half of what was said. But they 
could hardly forget the great arches of broken aqueducts 
stretching across the desolate Campagna, the yellow Tiber 
rolling past the castle of St. Angelo, the burst of sunlight 
through the top of the Pantheon, the huge mass of the 
CoHseum, or the view of the swelling dome of St. Peter's 
as seen from the Pincian Hill. Memorable, too, were the 
excursions to Hadrian's Villa and the cascades of Tivoli, to 
the Alban Lake, to Frascati, to Tusculum, to Palestrina. 

Delightful as it was, Rome could not claim the attention 
of any but exceptional tourists for more than a few weeks, 
commonly six or eight, and then preparation must be made 
for the trip to Naples or for the return northward. 

IX 

The journey from Rome to Naples afforded the leisurely 
tourist abundant opportunity, not merely to view some of 
the most exquisite scenery in Italy, but to visit ancient 
towns, in so far as he had not already done so in the excur- 
sions from Rome. But the ordinary tourist was at the 
mercy of his vetturino, and caught only fleeting glimpses on 
the way — here of an ancient tomb or the ruins of a villa, 
there of a rugged castle or of a white village on a hill. As 
for the road itself, it left much to be desired, » whether one 
went through Terracina and Fondi or farther east by 
Monte Cassino. 

Of the two or three halting-places on the way, one of 
the most usual was Capua.^ But the vast ruined amphi- 
theater and other ancient remains at Santa Maria di Capua 
Vetere, three or four miles farther south, made a pitiful 
contrast with the squalid modem town that had grown up 
about them. One was here beset by beggars and by vendors 

325 



ITALY 

of medals and coins dug up in the neighborhood — mostly 
the refuse that could not be sold to critical collectors. 

A few miles farther on was Caserta. In the second half of 
the century, after the construction of the huge royal palace, 
one of the most imposing in Europe, tourists often paused 
here to see the Italian Versailles and to compare it with 
its French prototype. From Caserta to Naples was a 
matter of but a few hours. 

The liveliest and noisiest city in Italy was undoubtedly 
Naples. This unique city, with its more than three hun- 
dred thousand inhabitants, and its forty thousand half- 
naked lazzaroni living in the streets, presented an endless 
variety of pictures strangely unlike anything to be seen in 
England. The din of the narrow thoroughfares was deaf- 
ening and incessant; it began before dawn with the bray- 
ing of asses and the bleating of goats, and continued until 
late at night with the rumbling of carts, the cries of hawk- 
ers, and the never-ceasing bray of the undaunted asses. 
Yet tourists of all types found a peculiar charm ^ in this 
noisy, dirty city. Wright called it the finest city in Italy ; ^ 
Nugent, "the pleasantest place in Europe";^ and the 
usually not too enthusiastic Dr. Moore regarded it, inde- 
pendently of "its happy situation," as "a very beautiful 
city." * 

No competent modem tourist counts the buildings of 
Naples that antedate the nineteenth century as preeminent 
for beauty. On the contrary, he is likely to regard most 
of them not only as dingy and mean, but as tawdry speci- 
mens of debased architecture. The modern point of view 
already appears in the comments of Mariana Starke at the 
close of the eighteenth century: "The extreme bad taste 
which pervades almost every building induces travellers to 
prefer Rome, even in her present mutilated state, to all 
the gaiety of Naples." ^ 

Far more flattering to Naples is the estimate of earlier 
tourists. Evelyn writes with enthusiasm of the cathedral 
as "a most magnificent pile"; and adds that, "except St. 
Peter's in Rome, Naples exceeds all cities for stately 

326 



ITALY 

churches and monasteries. ' ' ^ And he goes on to say : " The 
building of the city is for the size the most magnificent of 
any in Europe." ^ 

Eighteenth-century tourists are not less lavish in their 
praise, though Northall points out that Naples has been 
"so often ruined by invasions that few remains of antiquity 
are found in it." » Yet even Northall does not hesitate to 
say: "If Naples is not above half as big as Paris or Lon- 
don, yet it hath much more beauty than either of them." '» 
And a little eariier he remarks: " It is observed of this city, 
that though Rome and Florence may excel it in the mag- 
nificence of their churches, palaces, and other public edi- 
fices, yet their streets and private houses are generally 
mean and contemptible, if compared to those of Naples, 
where the buildings are more uniform and regular, and 
almost all the houses btdlt in a grand manner; the streets 
long, strait, spacious. . . . The street named Toledo 
excels most in Europe for its length and breadth." ^ 

It is, indeed, a striking commentary on eighteenth-cen- 
tury standards that so many travelers single out the Strada 
di Toledo as ' ' the finest street they have ever seen. ' ' ^ Even 
the critical De Brosses says that it is certainly the longest 
and handsomest street in any city of Europe,^ but he ad- 
mits that it has half a foot of mud and two rows of infa- 
mous shops and butchers' stalls that extend all the length 
of the street and mask the houses. Most of the other streets 
are narrow and mean. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, 
Naples is, in his opinion, the only city in Italy that really 
has the air of a capital.^ 

But whatever was to be said of the city itself, there 
could be but one judgment on the enchanting situation. 
The Bay of Naples was unrivaled for beauty in Italy; and 
Naples was the only great city in Europe with an active 
volcano at her very gates. "Naples," says Goethe, "is a 
paradise: in it every one lives in a sort of intoxicated self- 
forgetfulness. It is even so with me; I scarcely know my- 
self — I seem quite an altered man." * 
In this paradise the conditions were, nevertheless, not 

327 



ITALY 

entirely paradisaical. The standard of honesty was low, and 
the scheming shopkeeper looked upon an unwary tourist as 
the wolf looks upon the lamb. At night the streets were 
unlighted and dangerous, with only dim lights before the 
madonnas. 1 Many other matters were far from ideal. 
The illiteracy was appalling. ' ' Two in a hundred can read, ' ' 
says Dupaty.2 Beggars "covered with rags and filth" 
were omnipresent and pertinacious, crowding in shoals into 
the coffee-houses and driven by the waiters into the street 
every five minutes.^ The lazzaroni, says Moore, "strip 
themselves before the houses that front the bay, and bathe 
themselves in the sea without the smallest ceremony." 
During the heat of the day " those stout athletic figures " 
might be "seen walking and sporting on the shore per- 
fectly naked, and with no more idea of shame than Adam 
felt in his state of innocence; while the ladies from their 
coaches and the servant maids and young girls " would 
" contemplate this singular spectacle with as little apparent 
emotion as the ladies in Hyde Park behold a review of the 
horse guards." ^ Conditions so primitive were slightly dis- 
concerting to English tourists. But these undraped paupers 
were in one respect superior to the beggars of London — 
they were sober. The hard drinking there so common was 
very rare at Naples, and a drunken man or woman was 
scarcely ever seen in the streets.^ 

Notwithstanding the size of Naples, it was "difficult to 
find lodgings fit to receive a gentleman." Evelyn had 
stayed at the Three Kings, where he enjoyed "the most 
plentiful fare," seldom sitting "down to fewer than eight- 
een or twenty dishes of exqmsite meat and fruits." ^ Yet, 
says Sharp, more than a century later, "Except the house 
where I am, and another just by it, there are only two in- 
different houses of reception in all Naples, whither strangers 
resort."^ Good water was "a scarce commodity at 
Naples," and the air in some quarters was thought to be 
dangerous for persons with weak lungs. ^ 

To occupy one's time at Naples was not very difficult. 
Besides the endless panorama of the streets there were 

328 



ITALY 

excursions to Posilipo, to Virgil's tomb, to Baiae, to 
Passtum, to Capri, and, as the crowning attraction of all, 
to Vesuvius. The ascent of the volcano was usually 
counted as a tourist's duty that must not be shirked. 
But the Earl of Carlisle, writing to Selwyn, confesses, "If 
I had not been ashamed to have gone away from Naples 
without going up, I should certainly not have given myself 
the trouble." ^ 

Pffistum, with its array of ancient temples rivaled only 
by those of Girgenti, was an especially favorite excursion 
for tourists from Naples. "To-day," says Dupaty, "Paes- 
tum is not inhabited, so to speak, except by French, English, 
and Russian travellers, and not by Neapolitans." ^ The 
natives, indeed, gave little attention to such sight-seeing. 
"All the Neapolitans in general bestow great contempt on 
the strangers whose curiosity prompts them to ascend 
Mount Vesuvius, and scarcely one among a hundred of 
them can be found who has been upon that mountain. 
Few have ever seen Portici or Pompeii." ^ 

After the discovery and partial excavation of Hercu- 
laneum and Pompeii, tourists, however, flocked to see the 
ruins. Mariana Starke visited Pompeii * late in the cen- 
tury; and in her itemized list of expenses she notes: "To 
the man who throws water on the paintings, one or two 
carlini — to the guide, one ducat." ^ Comparatively little 
of either of the buried cities was to be seen, and that little 
was not very intelligently investigated. The main purpose 
of the eighteenth-century excavation was not to study the 
conditions of ancient life so marvelously preserved to our 
day, but to discover curiosities, art treasures, and other 
valuables. 

Many tourists at Naples were so bent upon sight-seeing 
that the few days at their disposal were overcrowded. But 
those with more leisure found society in Naples peculiarly 
agreeable and freely open to strangers who were properly 
introduced. Neapolitan hospitality was not, however, of 
the English type. Sharp, as is his wont on most matters, 
makes a sweeping assertion concerning the Neapolitan 

329 



ITALY 

traditions concerning entertainment: "It is not usual 
here to dine or sup at each others' houses, and there are 
some who never do, except only on Christmas Day, or, per- 
haps, during the week; nay, they are, in general, so unac- 
customed to entertain one another, that the greater num- 
ber seldom receive their friends but upon weddings, deaths, 
and lyings in." ^ Yet the nobility of Naples invited guests 
to their tables much more generally than was the case in 
other cities of Italy ,2 though this need not be taken to indi- 
cate widely extended hospitality. 

On this matter Sharp observes: "There are some, who, 
when they entertain, give the most splendid, expensive, 
and elegant dinners that can be imagined. The Prince of 
Franca Villa keeps a kind of open table every night, with 
twelve or fourteen covers, where the English of any figure 
are at all times received with the greatest politeness." ' 
Somewhat later he returns to the same theme: "There 
are not, as I have said, many of the nobility who keep any 
kind of open table; but those who do, never fail to invite 
such English whose quality, connections, or recommenda- 
tory letters, render them proper company for people of the 
first rank. The Prince of Villa Franca closed the carnival 
last week with a splendid dinner (perhaps more splendid 
than you see in London) provided for eighteen guests, ten 
of which were the English Gentlemen on their travels." * 

From 1764 to 1800, Sir William Hamilton was British 
Envoy at the Court of Naples, and, like Sir Horace Mann 
at Florence, counted it a large part of his duty to show 
courtesy to his countrymen and to distinguished strangers 
from other lands. He took De La Lande up Mount 
Vesuvius in 1765.^ Throughout his long stay Sir WilHam's 
house was popular with English visitors. Even as early as 
1765 he used to receive company every evening, much to 
the pleasure of the English. " It is the custom, ' ' says Sharp, 
"when neither the opera, nor any particular engagements 
prevent, to meet at his house, where we amuse ourselves 
as we are disposed, either at cards, the billiard-table, or his 
little concert; some form themselves into small parties of 

330 



ITALY 

conversation, and as the members of this society are often 
Ambassadors, Nuncios, Monsignoris, Envoys, Residents, 
and the first quality of Naples, you will conceive it to be 
instructive as well as honourable." ^ Even more attractive 
was the envoy's house after 1786, when the beauty and 
charm of Lady Emma Hamilton made it the most brilliant 
social center in Naples. 

Moral standards were not absurdly high in Neapolitan 
society, but as was the case in Paris, conventions regulat- 
ing dress and manners were rigid in the gay Southern capi- 
tal. A gentleman would not dare, says Dupaty, to appear 
in the streets on foot in the evening; he would be disgraced. 2 
Fortunately, carriages were cheap enough to impose no 
great expense upon those who knew the tariff.^ Servants, 
too, were very cheap ; and no lady drove out without run- 
ning footmen as a part of her equipage.^ 

One could easily and delightfully drift along for a whole 
social season at Naples, now at the theater, where the 
clergy, the monks not excepted, went like all the rest of the 
world; now at the opera, with its inevitable ballet; now 
on the promenade; now at the Academy. But whoever 
mingled in society was obliged to turn night into day. 
Fashionable gatherings did not break up until five o'clock 
in the morning.^ Playing for high stakes was a favorite 
diversion at Naples. Young Charles James Fox found 
ample opportunity there for lightening his purse. "When 
he sailed from Naples on his homeward journey, he left his 
father poorer, it is said, by sixteen thousand pounds." ^ 

Tovuists who were swept into the social whirl had little 
leisure for serious study at Naples, but even the idlers com- 
monly saw the most famous classical localities on their 
pleasure excursions and carried back to Rome an unforget- 
table memory of this land of the lotus — the ancient city 
rising tier on tier to the grim fortress of Saint-Elmo; the 
wreathing smoke of Vesuvius ; and, far down the Bay, 
enchanting Capri closing the view to the south. 



331 



ITALY 



X 



With the approach of the warm season the tourist, 
as a rule, made his way back from Naples and took leave 
of Rome to begin the long return journey. If he had 
come down through Florence and Siena, he was very 
likely to follow the road up the east coast through Lor- 
etto, Ancona, Rimini, and possibly Ravenna, then visit- 
ing some of the cities of the Lombard plain or proceeding 
to Venice for the festivities of Ascension. On this por- 
tion of the trip we need not linger, but we may spare a 
few words for two or three places, and first for Loretto. 
English tourists very frequently went to Loretto and 
gazed in wonder at the treasure heaped up there. Their 
comments, as might be expected from Protestants, were 
usually somewhat scornful. Prompted by Misson's 
"New Voyage to Italy," they remarked upon the beads 
that were bought and rubbed against the Santa Casa, 
and "against all the madonnas drawn by St. Luke, and 
some other most holy relics, as the pease which sprouted 
in the issue St. Francis had in his neck, which have such 
virtue that no devil can stand it." ' 

In a place so overcrowded with strangers as Loretto 
there was bound to be extortion. "The innkeepers," 
says Keysler, "are for imposing as much as they can 
upon strangers; but the entertainment is here generally 
very good." ^ He might also have added that it was some- 
times sufficiently penitential. In his usual satirical vein 
Dr. Moore remarks: "The innkeepers do not disturb the 
devotion of the pilgrims by the luxuries of either bed or 
board. I have not seen worse accommodations since I 
entered Italy than at the inn here." ' 

Some amends were made at Ancona, which hospi- 
tably welcomed tourists who could afford the time for 
social festivities. Baretti extols the courtesy of the in- 
habitants. They are "liberal of their dinners to many 
strangers, and especially the English, of whom they 
are enamoured to a degree of enthusiasm." ^ Ancona 

332 



MAUSOLEUM OF THEODORIC AT RAVENNA 



ITALY 

boasted its Roman triumphal arch and its cathedral with 
ancient Roman columns. But the si^^hts of Ancona were 
of small account to tourists fresh from Rome. 

Fano, Pcsaro, Rimini, the excursion to San Marino — 
of which Addison gives an interesting account — afforded 
attractions for a variety of tastes, but only occasional 
tourists took much interest in anything besides the Roman 
remains, such as the arch at Fano and the arch and the 
bridge at Rimini. 

Nor did they especially appreciate Ravenna. This an- 
cient city, with its unique array of churches and wall 
mosaics dating from the earliest Middle Ages, has for 
travelers of our time a peculiar fascination. But the at- 
titude of eighteenth-century tourists was somewhat con- 
descending, if not contemptuous. The famous botanist 
John Ray was there in the .seventeenth century and was 
not favorably impressed. "This place has scarce any 
thing to boast of now but its antiquity, being very ill 
peopled, ill .serv'd with fish, notwithstanding its vicinity 
to the sea, ill provided with inns, and worse with water." ^ 
More than three quarters of a century later Nugent 
found "the buildings . . . generally mean, the place 
but thinly peopled, and its trade entirely lost." ^ In his 
"Grand Tour," however, he devotes two and a half 
pages to the city, which was recognized as a place to be 
visited. Professional guides conducted strangers to the 
chief points of interest. One of these "was the Rotonda 
(a little church so called from its figure) without the 
walls." * This was the famous mausoleum of Theodoric 
the Great, surmounted by a single block of marble weighing 
four hundred and seventy tons. Byron made a consider- 
able stay at Ravenna. But, in general, eighteenth- 
century tourists not particularly interested in Byzantine 
art agreed with Dr. Moore, that Ravenna was "a disagree- 
able town," and commended the brevity of his account: 
"The ruins of his (Theodoric's) palace and his tomb now 
form part of the antiquities of Ravenna; among which I 
shall not detain you a moment." ^ 

333 



ITALY 

The tourist who had made the round of Italy that we 
have outlined had seen enough to satisfy ordinary curios- 
ity, and was ready to turn to other fields, either to ex- 
tend his journey into the German Empire or to enlarge 
his acquaintance with France. In making his way out 
through northern Italy, if he paid a second visit to Venice 
or Milan or Tiuin, his stay was commonly not very pro- 
tracted. His most likely move, as already remarked, was 
to bring up at Venice in time for Ascension and the fetes 
of that brilliant season. 



334 



CHAPTER XIII 

GERMANY 



It is unnecessary to follow the tourist farther in Italy, 
and obviously impossible to anticipate the route by 
which he might take his departure. On his way back 
to England, however, he not uncommonly planned to 
see something of Germany,^ though Germany as a whole 
attracted relatively few visitors in comparison with 
France and Italy. It was not until the nineteenth century 
that the flood of English travel began to set strongly 
in the direction of Germany, and even then, in most cases, 
the acquaintance with any portions except the Rhine and 
a few leading cities was strangely superficial. 

In the eighteenth centiury the German tour could, 
of course, be made, and often was made, in the earlier 
part of one's survey of the Continent. But since the tour 
through Germany was not regarded as so essential a 
part of the traveler's duty as the tour in France and 
Italy, it was more commonly reserved for the end. 

Germany as a whole stood more or less out of relation 
with the interests of the average Englishman, and that, 
too, notwithstanding the close political connection of 
England with the House of Hanover. With the rarest 
exceptions, the English totirist knew little about German 
art, architecture, or literature, and he was inclined to 
look with some contempt upon the plain German people. 
In all solid attainments the Germans were unsiirpassed by 
any people in Europe. But they were not preeminent 
for the social graces that distinguished the French — tact, 
ease, delicacy of taste, repartee. German society was 
hampered by a superabundance of conventional cere- 

335 



GERMANY 

mony. The very solidity of German scholarship did 
not make for lightness of touch in conversation. But 
some of these social defects were more than compensated 
by sterling virtues, and in particular by the sincerity that 
is still so engaging a trait of German character. The 
English and the Germans have long had every reason for 
the closest association and sympathy, but even in our 
time the two peoples hardly understand each other. 

Still, even in the eighteenth century, a considerable 
number of English tourists saw more or less of Germany. 
The toiuist who made his exit from Italy through Tiirin 
went by way of Susa over Mont Cenis. Not infrequently 
he passed through Chambery and Annecy to Geneva, 
and thence, perhaps, through Basel and Strassburg down 
the Rhine. Another important route ran up from Milan 
through Como, Lugano, Bellinzona, Giornico, Airolo, 
and thence over the Saint Gotthard Pass to Altorf and 
Lucerne,^ whence exit to the north was easy. But, ac- 
cording to Nugent, the pleasantest and more frequented 
route into Germany was through Trent and Botzen, 
over the Brenner to Innsbruck. From here one could 
go by a well-traveled road to Munich and Augsburg.^ 

To go from Venice to Vienna, the shortest way was the 
carriage road through Mestre, Treviso, Villach, Sankt 
Veit, Judenburg, and Knittelfeld, a distance of two 
hundred and eighty-six miles. For this journey, says 
Nugent, "you may hire a chaise at Mestre for Vienna and 
give the vetturino fourteen or fifteen ducats for your pas- 
sage, all charges included, or from seven to eight ducats 
without including all charges." ^ This route occupied 
twelve or thirteen days and offered little to satisfy one's 
curiosity.^ Nugent recommends, therefore, the post-road 
to Vienna by way of Mestre, Palma, Laibach, Cilli, and 
Gratz, as affording "much the best accommodation 
for travellers." ^ One could vary this second route " by 
taking ship at Venice for Trieste" and going thence by 
land to Laibach and Vienna. 

Once arrived in Germany the tourist found it prudent, 

336 



GERMANY 

if he cared for his comfort, to confine his journey to the 
main routes. And this simple fact seriously limited 
the range of his knowledge of the country. 

II 

It is extremely difficult to generalize about Germany in 
the eighteenth century, so great were the differences 
between adjacent districts and even adjacent towns. 
For the passing stranger, ignorant of the language and 
unable to determine what was typical and what was ex- 
ceptional, the task was wholly beyond his powers. 

Germany in our time easily takes its place in the front 
rank of the nations of the world — in scholarship, in com- 
mercial enterprise, in military might. In the eighteenth 
century, as we have elsewhere seen, Germany as a whole 
suffered from arrested development. The great indus- 
tries, which in our time have brought wealth to Diissel- 
dorf and Elberfeld and Essen and Leipsic and Nurem- 
berg and Berlin, were not even in their infancy. Portions 
of Germany — especially the agricultural districts — 
were desperately poor, but, as might be expected in a 
coiuitry where in the course of an afternoon drive one 
might be in the dominions of two or three independent 
petty sovereigns, the contrasts were very sharp. Early 
in the century Lady Mary Wortley Montagu remarked: 
" 'Tis impossible not to observe the difference between 
the free towns and those under the government of abso- 
lute princes, as all the little sovereigns of Germany are. 
In the first, there appears an air of commerce and plenty. 
The streets are well built, and full of people, neatly and 
plainly dressed. The shops are loaded with merchandise, 
and the commonality are clean and cheerful. In the 
other, you see a sort of shabby finery, a number of dirty 
people of quality tawdered out; narrow, nasty streets out 
of repair, wretchedly thin of inhabitants, and above 
half of the common sort asking alms." ^ 

Estimates of Germany naturally varied widely accord- 

337 



GERMANY 

ing to the point of view and the opportunities of the 
tourist. Very flattering is the account of Dr. Edward 
Browne, son of the author of "ReHgio Medici," in the 
last third of the seventeenth century: " Now I must confess 
that after I had taken so full a view of Germany, I found 
it quite different from the conceptions I had formed of 
it myself. . . . 'Tis true, France has many fine cities 
and seaports, yet they do not come up in number to 
those in Germany, and I much question whether it has 
any places that exceed Hamburgh, Lubeck, Dantzick, 
Bremen, etc. Besides which, the whole country is full of 
populous towns, great villages, strong castles, seats of 
persons of quality, delicious plants, forests, and pleasant 
woods. Nay, Germany affords even under ground mines 
of gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead, quicksilver, anti- 
mony, coal, salt, stdphur, cadmia, etc., and is full of the 
best artificers to work in them. Add to this the easy con- 
versation of the people, who are great lovers of strangers 
and honest in their dealings. The women are generally 
well complexioned, of a sober behaviour, faithful to their 
husbands, and good housewives." ' 

German cities made, as a rule, a very favorable im- 
pression upon tourists. Nugent sweepingly declares: 
"There are no better buildings in Europe, out of Italy, 
than those of Germany. The town-houses are far more 
magnificent than those of other countries; and most of 
the palaces and cathedrals being Gothic, they discover 
a grand though irregular taste." ^ 

In the eighteenth century Germany was on the whole 
more picturesque than it now is. The onward march 
of civilization has swept away many a decayed medieval 
building, and many an old social usage that still lingered 
harmlessly a century and a half ago. In many places 
the ancient costumes were still wom,^ where now is the 
dull uniformity made possible by the cheap department 
store. 

But notwithstanding all the inducements in Germany 
to lure the traveler onward, — the variety of scenery, 

338 



GERMANY 

the picturesque architecture, the historic associations of 
the cities, and the active social life in the great centers, 
— few tourists became thoroughly acquainted with more 
than a small portion of the German Empire. The guide- 
books duly described the principal cities, but English 
tourists rarely visited them with the interest that they 
bestowed upon the cities of France and Italy. English- 
men found agreeable entertainment in a few representa- 
tive centers, such as Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfort, Munich, 
Dresden, Prague, Vienna, the Rhine cities, Leipsic, Han- 
over; but in the medieval architecture of Nuremberg, 
Hildesheim, Rothenburg, and similar medieval towns, now 
the delight of lovers of the picturesque, they took com- 
paratively little interest. 

Smaller towns that chanced to lie upon the route they 
commonly saw rapidly, but they deviated little from 
the main highways for the sake of getting a more inti- 
mate acquaintance with the rural districts. For this 
neglect there was considerable excuse. The typical 
English village, with its great elms and oaks, its thatched 
cottages, its stately manor-houses, its well-kept green 
beside the ivy-covered church, had comparatively few 
counterparts in Germany. The German village was too 
often an ill-kept, malodorous, single street, with squalid 
houses built close to the unpaved road, in which ducks 
and swine found a congenial abiding-place. Naturally 
enough, then, the English tourist, almost invariably 
ignorant of German and acquainted with only an in- 
significant fraction of the country, seldom shows an 
intelligent appreciation of Germany and the German 
people. As a rule, he compares Germany with England, 
much to his own satisfaction. The homely, bourgeois 
character of a great part of the country, with the odd 
manners and the abundance of beer and tobacco, sausage 
and sauerkraut, is what appears most to impress the 
stranger. He notes that women lack taste in dress and 
that they carry their knitting to the theater. 

In this sort of observation, so common in books of 

339 



GERMANY 

travel, there was a measure of truth. The German ap- 
petite was excellent ; the German standard of taste in dress 
was not exactly Parisian ; and plain living made necessary 
by small incomes was the rule. The marvelous advance 
of Prussia in military strength and in the arts of peace 
under Frederick the Great even the hastiest tourist was 
bound to notice, but of the multitude of states that made 
up Germany most Englishmen had only the most super- 
ficial knowledge. At all events, such a familiarity with 
the country as any persistent traveler with a compe- 
tent knowledge of German can now gain in a few months, 
was extremely rare. 

We see, then, that of the countries included in the con- 
ventional grand tour, Germany was the one with which 
the average tourist gained the least accurate acquaintance. 
Through the medium of his bad French he possibly learned 
at first-hand some items of interest about cities and towns 
from Germans of the upper classes. But his lack of acquain- 
tance with the vernacular made him entirely incompetent 
to gather information from the rank and file of the people, 
or even to pronounce correctly the names of the towns he 
passed through.^ 

Naturally, he had no acquaintance whatever with German 
literature. Even as late as 1824, Carljde remarked in the 
Preface to his translation of "Wilhelm Meister": "Hith- 
erto our literary intercourse with that nation has been 
very slight and precarious." And Leslie Stephen has 
sho\sm in detail how painfully slow Englishmen were in 
getting a working acquaintance with the German language. 
In the eighteenth century they could therefore hardly dis- 
cern signs of promise in a literature they could not read. 

English toiirists may, indeed, be pardoned for neglect- 
ing to acquire a knowledge of German, when Germans of 
high social standing "considered it as an accomplishment 
to be imable to express themselves in the language of their 
country," and took pains to keep their children ignorant of 
their native tongue so that it might not hurt their pronun- 
ciation of French.^ Riesbeck comments very freely upon 

340 



GERMANY 

the German nobles, upon their extravagance, their "ridic- 
ulous passion for titles," their fondness for horses, equi- 
pages, and servants, and upon the advantage to themselves 
"if they could bring over from France something more be- 
coming than a stiff carriage, an affected walk, a taste 
for gaming, and a wretched jargon." ' Tourists found, 
even after the middle of the century, that one book out of 
every ten printed in Germany was in French. 

It is true, too, that the great period of German literature 
is subsequent to the period that chiefly occupies us. But 
with Gellert and Klopstock and Hagedom and Wieland 
and Lessing, there was already a brilliant beginning — 
altogether unsuspected by the passing tourist. It is, in- 
deed, a significant fact that until after the French Revolu- 
tion English literature, apart from a few hymns, owes little 
or nothing to German. In Germany, on the other hand, in 
the second half of the eighteenth century, English literature 
received much attention, and sometimes it was preferred 
to French.2 In cultured society, particularly at Dresden 
and Hamburg, English tourists were agreeably surprised 
to be addressed now and then in tolerable English, though 
French remained the conventional language of courtiers and 
hotel waiters until the nineteenth century was well ad- 
vanced.^ 

For the middle of the eighteenth century Nugent sums 
up the linguistic situation in a few words: "Latin and 
French are the most useful for those that travel through 
Germany, most people of any common education being 
acquainted with one of these two languages. For a German 
that understands only his mother-tongue is looked on as a 
person that has not common breeding; neither is it enough 
for him to understand Latin : the knowledge of the French 
tongue is also requisite, if he designs to pass for one that 
has had a polite education. Hence it comes, that there is 
no country in the world where there is such a vast number 
of masters of language, especially for the French, who pick 
up a very comfortable living. Numbers of them, particu- 
larly in the south part of Germany, pique themselves also 

341 



GERMANY 

for understanding Italian; and even the English tongue of 
late has begun to be cultivated, especially in Upper and 
Lower Saxony." ^ 

English tourists could, doubtless, with no great difficulty, 
get on after a fashion in Germany. But most Englishmen 
had little curiosity for what was most characteristic. The 
very features of the older Germany that make it peculiarly 
attractive to toiuists in our time were largely repellent to 
tourists of the eighteenth century. As a result, the great 
stream of English travel flowed rapidly through the ordinary 
channels and took little with it. 

As already observed, all that particularly interested the 
eighteenth-century tourist was to be found in the towns 
and cities. And this was natural. Germany, taken as a 
whole, was poor, and only in the cities and in the numerous 
little courts did evidence of wealth appear. The rural 
hamlets and the houses of the peasantry were, as a rule, 
destitute of comfort. But in the great towns, like Hamburg 
and Frankfort-on-the-Main and Leipsic and Dresden and 
Berlin, notwithstanding the prevailing standards of plain 
living, many representatives of the middle classes had 
risen in wealth and influence, and were fond of luxury and 
display. In some cases they had eagerly given themselves 
to the delights of literature and philosophy. Those who 
were just below the nobility in rank had, indeed, copied the 
fashions and the vices of their social superiors ; but, as never 
before since the Revival of Learning, a multitude of men 
and women of position and influence were devoted to culture. 
At the universities, particularly at Gottingen and Leipsic 
and Jena, there was a strange new life. In the highest 
circles, too, culture became the fashion, — not merely in 
the circle surrounding Frederick the Great, but in scores of 
little courts scattered about the country, — Weimar, Gotha, 
Anspach, Darmstadt, Meiningen. 

But this intense intellectual activity was by no means 
uniformly distributed. While the Protestant states of the 
North were thrilling with the new spirit, the Catholic 
states of the South were relatively apathetic. And then, 

342 



GERMANY 

too, throughout the country the old inherited divisions 
between the ranks of society made close relations between 
the nobility and the commercial classes — whatever their 
intellectual attainments — the exception rather than the 
rule. In some cases German princes and nobles seemed to 
brush aside all distinctions of rank and to associate on 
equal terms with scholars and men of letters, but such 
condescension, however genuine and honorable, was by^no 
means a matter of course. 

The truth is, that all German higher society, like the 
society of France and Italy, was extremely artificial. But 
in greater measure than any other part of Europe com- 
monly visited by tourists Germany dehghted in elaborate 
ceremony, in petty dignities, in high-sounding titles, which 
could not be omitted without causing a social cataclysm. 
Until the sentimentaHsm of the Werther period — after 
1774 — brought in its train for a time a sort of artificial 
return to simplicity in dress and manners, well-to-do so- 
ciety was tightly held in the bands of a rigid conven- 
tionality. 

Into society such as this the English tourist in Germany 
came, and, if properly introduced, commonly received a 
warm welcome. Riesbeck comments upon the amazing 
popularity of the EngHsh in Germany about 1780. The 
Mecklenburghers especially, says he, have a fondness and 
veneration for them that approaches to superstition.^ 
Germans in the eighteenth century were still true to their 
ancient reputation as good providers; and their hospi- 
tality imposed upon a guest no light burden. "Their en- 
tertainments," says Nugent, "are perfect banquets, where 
they are full of their ceremonies, and so prodigal of their 
liquor and provisions as to give rather uneasiness than 
pleasure to their guests." ^ 



III 

After this rapid survey of the conditions of life in Ger- 
many, we may now glance at a few, and only a few, repre- 

343 



GERMANY 

sentative German cities that English tourists were likely 
to see, — at least in passing. . These cities, needless to say, 
have in most cases been greatly changed in the course of 
a century or more. In our day by far the greater propor- 
tion of German cities have long since transformed their 
ancient encircling defenses into well-shaded promenades. 
In the middle of the eighteenth century, we are told: "Al- 
most all the towns in Germany have old fortifications, which 
consist only of a wall or rampart faced with brick, a trench 
ftdl of water, and gates defended by half moons ; but few are 
able to hold out a siege." ^ But even to-day, notwithstand- 
ing the amazing transformations of the last half -century, 
one still finds in the older portions of Braunschweig, of 
Hildesheim, of Nuremberg, of Augsburg, of Karlsruhe, of 
Vienna, and of scores of other towns, the very streets, al- 
most unchanged, that met the view of the eighteenth-cen- 
tury tourist. Many cities in Germany a century and a half 
ago had much the same relative importance that they have 
to-day, but the modem industrial revolution has greatly 
enlarged and strangely metamorphosed some towns that 
in the eighteenth century hardly existed on the map. 

Where to begin and where to end our survey of German 
cities cannot be arbitrarily prescribed, but if we take the 
eighteenth-century tourist as our guide, we must in any 
case single out three or four cities in Austrian territory for 
special mention and reserve our remaining space for some 
of the most notable cities within the limits of the present 
German Empire. 

The tourist going from Italy over the Brenner was bound 
to visit Innsbruck, charmingly situated on the Inn, with 
the mountain wall guarding the little city. Some of the 
arcaded streets with their stately houses reminded him of 
Italy. Here he was certain to see the famous Golden Roof 
and in the Hofkirche the wonderful monument of Kaiser 
Maximilian I, with its array of life-size bronze statues. 
With a little effort he could also visit Castle Amras in the 
vicinity and see the great collection of artistic objects that 
are now among the chief treasures of Vienna. 

344 



GERMANY 

From Innsbruck one could take the very rough coaching- 
road to Augsburg, a distance of ninety-four miles, and pro- 
ceed thence through Donauworth and Nuremberg to 
Hamburg. But as that plan would leave out Vienna, the 
tourist frequently went direct from Venice to Vienna, by 
one of the routes already outlined. 

The influence of Vienna was greater than its size would 
appear to warrant. Baron Riesbeck about 1780 ranked 
it in population along with Naples, but after Constanti- 
nople, London, and Paris. Few cities in Europe were more 
attractive to the tourist. The care-free temper of the Aus- 
trian capital made the pleasure-seeking traveler feel in- 
stantly at home. "Vienna," says Sherlock, "is perhaps the 
best city in Europe to teach a young traveller the manners 
of the great world : at his arrival he will be introduced into 
all the best houses; and if he is an EngHshman, he will 
meet with the most flattering reception. "^ And even the 
usually cynical Dr. Moore says with enthusiasm: "I im- 
agine there is no city in Europe where a young gentleman, 
after his university education is finished, can pass a year 
with so great advantage; because, if properly recom- 
mended, he may mix on an easy footing with people of 
rank and have opportunities of improving by the conver- 
sation of sensible men and accomplished women. In no 
capital could he see fewer examples, or have fewer oppor- 
tunities, of deep gambling, open profligacy, or gross de- 
bauchery." 2 Moore's eulogy is surely not stinted. We 
may well believe that any one bent upon vicious amuse- 
ment would have had no long search in Vienna to find what 
he sought. Some tourists even counted it among the most 
dissolute cities in Europe. 

In general, the atmosphere in the upper ranks of society 
was more French than German. French was heard on every 
side ; French fashions were the rtde in dress ; ' and French 
manners admirably suited the temper of the gay and ex- 
travagant throngs that crowded the Viennese salons. 
Strangers were impressed with the lavish display of wealth. 
"There is no place in the world," says Nugent, "where 

345 



GERMANY 

people live more luxuriously than at Vienna. Their 
chief diversion is feasting and carousing, on which occa- 
sions they are extremely well served with wine and eatables. 
People of fortune will have eighteen or twenty sorts of 
wines at their tables, and a note is laid on every plate men- 
tioning every sort of wine that may be called for." In the 
winter, he remarks, there is much driving about in sledges 
of fantastic shapes.^ " In the short time I have been here," 
says Baron Riesbeck, "I have seen more splendid equi- 
pages and horses than there are in all Paris. Our fashions 
prevail here universally. Dressed dolls are regularly sent 
from Paris for the purpose of teaching the women how to 
put on their gowns and dress their heads. Even the men 
from time to time get memoranda from Paris, and lay 
them before their taylors and hair-dressers." ^ 

In view of the social attractions of Vienna we can well 
believe Dr. Moore, when he says: " I never passed my time 
more agreeably than since I came to Vienna. There is not 
such a constant round of amusements as to fill up a man's 
time without any plan or occupation of his own; and yet 
there is enough to satisfy any mind not perfectly vacant 
and dependent on external objects. — We dine abroad two 
or three times a week. We sometimes see a little play, but 
never any deep gambling." ^ 

He might have added that Vienna, though lagging be- 
hind in some particulars, was a leader in music and the 
drama. One instinctively thinks of Haydn and Mozart and 
Metastasio and the other notable names of the little world 
that prospered by giving pleasure to others. Vienna shared 
with Munich and Dresden the distinction of presenting 
Italian opera most brilliantly. And the Vienna theater, 
particularly in the last quarter of the century, was famous 
throughout Europe. 

But Vienna in the eighteenth century, with all its at- 
tractions, was by no means the palatial city that one sees 
to-day. Then as now the vast cathedral of St. Stephen, 
with its lofty spire, dominated the whole region, and there 
were other notable structures. But even in the last quar- 

346 



GERMANY 

ter of the century Baron Riesbeck complains: "There are 
scarce eight buildings in the whole town which can be 
called beautiful or magnificent. . . . The Emperor's pal- 
ace is an old black building, that has neither beauty nor 
stateliness. . . . There are hardly three squares or places 
here which make any figure at all." ^ Where the great 
promenades, adorned with some of the stateliest buildings 
in Europe, now delight the eye of the tourist, an encircling 
wall shut in the narrow and unimpressive streets. The 
palaces of the nobility were richly furnished, but with 
more expense than taste. One of the most attractive, just 
outside the old inner city, was the Liechtenstein Palace, 
with its extensive gardens and its great picture gallery, 
which to this day is the most notable private collection in 
Vienna. The houses of ordinary citizens were "built of 
stone, generally five or six stories high." ^ By a singular 
provision, "the second floor of every house" was regarded 
as the property of the sovereign and assigned to officers 
or dependents of the court or to any one else. "This is 
the reason," says Nugent, "there is no other part of Ger- 
many where lodging is so dear as at Vienna." ' 

In the eighteenth century the inns of the city had a well- 
deserved reputation for being very good but also very 
expensive. The best known were The Court of Bavaria, the 
Golden Crown, the Black Eagle, the Black Elephant. 
Tourists who wished to practice economy were advised to 
live in private houses if they intended to make any stay in 
the capital.* But lodgings were by no means easy to find: 
"I ran about the city," says Baron Riesbeck, "three whole 
days with my laquais de place, before I could get housed. 
It is not here as at Paris, where there is an office in every 
part of the city, giving an account of what houses or 
lodgings are to be let, and for what price." ^ Street doors 
were locked after ten at night, and any one entering after 
that hour was expected to fee the porter — a custom that 
has siu^ived to our own time. 

The suburbs were more populous than the city,^ but ill- 
paved and meanly built. Best worth seeing was the Palace 

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of Schonbninn, with its famous gardens. Most popular 
as a pleasure-ground was the great Prater,^ bordering the 
Danube, where all the society of Vienna appeared in carved 
gilt coaches and, along with throngs of humbler folk, 
watched the display of fireworks of a summer evening. 

When the tourist had completed the social round and 
had explored some of the charming environs of Vienna, 
he was usually ready to move toward Munich and Augs- 
burg and Nuremberg or toward Prague and Dresden, Leip- 
sic and Berlin. An occasional tourist made his way down 
the Danube to Pressburg or Buda-Pesth, or even farther, 
but the normal tourist did nothing of the sort. If he took 
the road toward Munich, he could with a sHght detour see 
some of the mountain regions now counted among the most 
attractive in Europe. But a century and a half ago the 
traveler who delayed among the mountains south of Salz- 
burg or in the Tyrol commonly had no great desire to 
repeat his experience. 

Salzburg was a convenient resting-place, and was 
thought to be worth seeing, though it did not afford much 
social amusement, as the inhabitants mostly kept aloof 
from strangers.2 51^^^ {^ behind its fortifications, the 
town, with its high houses built all of stone, was regarded 
as "very handsome." And as for the cathedral, a rather 
feeble imitation of St. Peter's at Rome, travelers pronounced 
it "a magnificent building of freestone, which may be reck- 
oned the completest in Germany" I^ Even Baron Ries- 
beck thought it the handsomest edifice he had seen since 
he left Paris.^ But for the marvelous beauty of the situa- 
tion, with the castle-crowned hill behind the city, the glacial 
river rushing past the ancient walls, and the mighty Salz- 
burg Alps towering in the distance, the eighteenth-century 
tourist had far less appreciation than has the tourist of our 
day. 

On leaving Salzburg, the first place of importance after 
entering Bavaria was Munich. Throughout the eight- 
eenth century Munich was a small walled city of very 
moderate architectural pretensions. Besides the famous 

348 



GERMANY 

Frauenkirche there was comparatively little of special note. 
The great transformation which, under Ludwig I and his 
successors, has made Munich one of the handsomest cities 
of Europe, had not even begun. None of the great mu- 
seums or art galleries that are now the glory of the city had 
been founded. But tourists of the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries lavish praises upon the city. The Elec- 
tor's Palace was pronounced a "superb structure." Even 
the matter-of-fact Nugent says with enthusiasm: "The 
splendour and beauty of its buildings, both public and 
private, and the magnificence of its churches and convents 
are such that it surpasses anything in Germany for the 
bigness." ^ 

As late as 17 71 the population did not exceed thirty-one 
thousand. But the social life at Munich was attractive, — 
in some respects too attractive ; ^ and the opportunity to 
hear good music, particularly opera, was one of the best in 
Germany. 

Northwest of Munich a few hours' journey was Augs- 
burg, the ancient free imperial city which in the Middle 
Ages shared with Nuremberg the great trade between the 
north and the south of Europe. The change in trade routes 
after the discovery of America, and the devastation of 
repeated wars, reduced Augsburg to comparative insignifi- 
cance. But tourists on their way up from Munich to 
Nuremberg and Frankfort commonly passed through Augs- 
burg and saw the principal sights — the stately Maximilian- 
strasse, with its fountains, the house of the Fuggers, the 
merchant princes of Europe, the ancient cathedral, the 
town-house with its famous Golden Hall, and everywhere 
the picturesque swinging signs of ornamental ironwork. 

An occasional tourist made his way westward to Ulm, 
for the sake of seeing the famous cathedral, but as a rule 
travelers pushed on to Nuremberg and Frankfort. Among 
the cities of Germany, Nuremberg for centuries enjoyed 
special distinction. A free imperial city, and the depository 
of the imperial regalia, its patrician rulers were proud 
of its name and its influence. Its situation on the old 

349 



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trade route through Augsburg to Italy and the East 
gave the city exceptional prosperity during the Middle 
Ages and particularly in the fifteenth and early sixteenth 
centuries. Along with wealth came a wonderful artistic 
development, brilliantly illustrated by the work of Al- 
brecht Durcr, Adam KrafTt, Veit Stoss, and Peter Vischer. 

But, as in the case of Augsburg, the change in the 
trade routes and the disasters of the Thirty Years' War 
well-nigh ruined Nuremberg. Throughout the eight- 
eenth century it was much depressed. The population 
dwindled sadly, and many hundreds of houses stood 
empty. But it still had a considerable trade, and it pre- 
served much of the aristocratic temper of preceding gen- 
erations. "There arc," says Nugent, "several distin- 
guished families in Nurenbcrg, which are honoured with 
the title of Patricians. Some of them are very rich, but 
so haughty that nobody visits them, and they scarce 
visit one another. They are apt to ape the noble Vene- 
tians in everything, and to tyrannize over the people. 
They wear pointed hats and monstrous bushy ruffs." ^ 
The imitation of Venetian aristocratic exclusiveness 
brought it about that social life in Nuremberg had no 
such freedom as in Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Ham- 
burg, or in Berlin. "Conversation with the fair sex," 
says Keysler, "is under much greater restraints in Nurcn- 
berg than in most other large cities. . . . And although 
a foreigner be recommended to a Nurenbergcr in the 
strongest manner, he will very, seldom invite him to 
his house if he has a wife or daughter, but is so mistrust- 
ful that he rather chuses to carry him to a tavern, and 
there do him the honour of a rausche, i.e., make him 
drunk." ^ 

After Keysler's day social lines were somewhat less 
strictly drawn, but new ideas made slow progress in 
Nuremberg. Many things were typically medieval. 
"At each gate of the city," we are told, "a man is em- 
ployed every night to go to the top of a high tower from 
whence he sounds a frightful hora, to call people home 

350 



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from the suburbs, and at the second blast every one, 
except the patricians, must hasten to town, or be shut 
out." ' 

In our day, when one looking out from the ancient 
Burg sees in the suburbs the tall smoking shafts of great 
factories that have made Nuremberg the most prosper- 
ous commercial city in southern Germany, one can hardly 
realize how short is the time that separates us from the 
older order. 

From Nuremberg the tourist who was making his 
way to the Rhine region was likely to go to Frankfort- 
on-thc-Main. This old free city, so exquisitely described 
by Goethe, was on the great highroads leading to every 
part of Germany. Like Hamburg, it had kept much of 
its old prosperity and had an enviable reputation through- 
out Europe for the excellence of its inns and the luxury 
in which the best families lived. There was, indeed, an 
old-fashioned air about Frankfort, an abiding, pervasive 
survival of the many centuries that had witnessed the cor- 
onation of the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire within the 
ancient Romer. One recalls the suits of clothes that 
Goethe brought with him from Frankfort to Leipsic, 
when he went to the university, and the discovery he made 
that he was dressed in the style of an earlier generation. 

But Frankfort was one of the most interesting cities 
in Germany, and in some particulars one of the most en- 
lightened. Following old traditions, the municipality 
permitted a reasonaVjlc freedom of speech and encouraged 
an active trade. Even in Coryate's time it was a great 
center for booksellers. Says he, "I went to the Bookesel- 
lers streete, where I saw such infinite abundance of bookes, 
that I greatly admired it. For this street far excelleth 
Paules Churchyard in London, Saint James streete in 
Paris, the Merceria of Venice, and all whatsoever else that 
I sawe in my travels."' The supremacy in the publish- 
ing of books gradually passed to Leipsic, but the great 
fair of Frankfort drew large numbers of French and 
German merchants every year. 

351 



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Tourists of all sorts found their way to Frankfort, 
and with little difficulty entered the social life of the 
city. We may note in passing that the Jews at Frank- 
fort were very numerous.^ As in many other German 
cities, "they are confined," says Nugent, "to a particu- 
lar part of the town, and go about from tavern to tavern 
selling things to strangers. The Christians have a great 
contempt for these wretches, putting them to the vilest 
drudgeries, and particularly employing them in extin- 
guishing fires. . . . They are obliged to wear a piece of 
yellow cloth, to distinguish them from the other inhab- 
itants." ^ This treatment appears sufficiently humiliating, 
but it was far more liberal than was the case at Augs- 
burg. There, says Nugent, "the Jews are not allowed 
to live in the city, but in the neighboring villages, and are 
obliged to pay a florin an hour when they resort hither." ^ 

But we must pass on to the Rhine. Few tourists whose 
route brought them near the great river omitted the 
trip down the Rhine. One could, as already remarked, 
return from Italy through Geneva and Basel and descend 
the Rhine, going as far as the cities of Holland. No other 
river journey in Europe offered more of scenic and his- 
toric interest or such an array of interesting cities — 
Strassburg, Spires, Worms, Mannheim, with Heidelberg 
a little to the east, Mainz, with Frankfort and Wiesbaden 
within easy driving distance, Coblenz, Bonn, Cologne, 
Diisseldorf, — to cite but a few. 

Popular as the journey through the Rhine region was, 
it was very primitive in comparison with the luxurious 
excursion of to-day. Up stream, indeed, against the 
swift current, progress was very slow. In the course of 
a century or more there has been a great change in the 
appearance of the districts along the banks. Then as 
now vineyards covered the hills; but the aspect of the 
towns was very old-fashioned. Most of them were walled. 
Many had suffered severely in war. Almost all were 
picturesque and interesting, but few of them were parti- 
cularly inviting on close inspection. In many cases the 

352 



GERMANY 

streets were badly paved and not too clean, and the an- 
cient houses were out of repair. The eighteenth century- 
did not greatly prize the survivals of the Middle Ages 
that lend a peculiar charm to the valley of the Rhine. 

Some change in the aspect of these old towns might be 
expected in the course of three or four generations. But 
even when allowance is made for reasonable growth, 
it seems hardly credible that the lapse of little more than 
a century could have wrought such transformations as are 
found in these cities as they appear to-day and as they 
are pictured in the plates that illustrate Cogan's de- 
scription of the Rhine at the end of the eighteenth century. 

But there was no lack of material for the sight-seer 
of a centtu-y and a half ago. Strassburg,^ Spires, and 
Worms offered their great cathedrals; and a short detour 
to the east, on the way down from Basel to Strassburg, 
brought one to the old university town of Freiburg,^ 
with its wooded hills and its fascinating cathedral. More 
generally admired in the period of the grand tour was 
Mannheim. Eighteenth-century taste regarded Mann- 
heim, with its straight streets crossing one another at 
right angles, as one of the most beautiful cities in Ger- 
many. Bombarded and destroyed by the French in 1689 
along with other cities of the Upper Rhine, it was rebuilt 
ten years later with appalling regularity. Between 1720 
and 1739 the Elector of the Palatinate erected here a huge 
palace in which one of the most notable collections of art 
and antiquities in Germany was housed. Its chief rivals 
were at Diisseldorf and at Dresden. Unless too hurried, 
the tourist who could present suitable credentials usually 
arranged to see the Mannheim Collection, but if he had 
neglected to attend to the formalities in advance, the loss 
of time was usually too great. 

A few miles below Mannheim, and almost opposite 
to the mouth of the Main, was the ancient city of Mainz. 
In many particulars it contrasted unfavorably with the 
neighboring Frankfort. From a distance it made a brave 
showing, with its towers, its red roofs, and the huge mass 

353 



GERMANY 

of the cathedral. But the narrow, irregular, and badly 
paved streets, the decayed medieval buildings, and the 
general air of neglect did not invite a protracted sojourn. 
The entire spirit of the place was different from that of 
Frankfort. There a merchant might be a magistrate 
and move in the best circles. But at Mainz any one in 
commercial life was excluded with contempt from the 
society of the gentry. French influence was strong at 
Mainz, and French was the favored speech among all who 
enjoyed high social standing. 

We can spare but a word for most of the other towns 
along the Rhine. In our day Bingen is particularly well 
known. In the eighteenth century it was a mere village, 
chiefly notable because a toll was demanded here from 
every vessel going up or down the Rhine. 

The next town particularly worthy of note was Coblenz, 
now one of the best-built and most attractive of the cities 
in the entire valley. Charmingly situated at the point 
where the Mosel joins the Rhine, Coblenz was one of the 
most historic of the cities between Mainz and Cologne. 
The town had considerable wealth but was not handsome. 
"The houses in general" were "antiquated and the pave- 
ment irregular." ^ But as Coblenz had suffered severely 
during the Thirty Years' War, and in 1688 was almost 
entirely destroyed, though not captured, by the French 
when they ravaged the Rhineland, it may well have 
been somewhat dingy and uninviting. Tomists going 
up or down the Rhine, or traversing the route between 
Luxemburg and Coblenz by way of Trier and through 
the Mosel Valley, perforce made a short stay at Coblenz. 
To Coblenz flocked the French nobility after the out- 
break of the Revolution and there lived for months — 
idle and ungratefid — on the bounty of the Elector. 
But for the ordinary sight-seer, who cared little for the 
ancient Church of St. Castor or the Gothic bridge over 
the Mosel, there was not much in the town itself to in- 
vite a long visit. 

Bonn shared with Mainz and Cologne the distinction 

354 



TOWING A VESSEL UP THE RHINE — THE TOWN AND 
CASTLE OF HAMMERSTEIN IN THE BACKGROUND 



GERMANY 

of being "one of the oldest towns on the Rhine, but it 
offered little to tourists. When Misson, making the grand 
tour in 1687 with his pupil, ascended the Rhine, the 
two went ashore at Bonn. The place appeared to them 
"a little dirty city," and they "could not learn that 
there was anything in it to deserve their stay there." ^ 
In Misson's day the university was not yet founded, 
and for the Romanesque minster, with its apse toward 
the river, he had no eyes. But the beautiful situation 
made Bonn a favorite place of residence in the eighteenth 
century. Nugent observes that it improves every day, 
while Cologne is decaying .^ 

Cologne was visible from afar, and with its walls and 
towers was strikingly picturesque. '"Tis very rare," 
says Nugent, "to see so many steeples anywhere at once 
as appear to travellers upon approaching this city." ^ 
Early in the seventeenth century Coryate thought the 
market-place "the fairest that I saw in my whole voyage, 
saving that of St. Marks street in Venice." ^ But of all 
the places in Germany that are now viewed by travelers 
with admiring eyes, Cologne, even in the second half 
of the eighteenth century, called forth the severest crit- 
icism for its beggars, its squalor, its superstition. Much 
of the city was badly built, and many houses were deserted 
and falling in ruins. Baron Riesbeck pronounced it in 
every respect the ugliest town in all Germany. Grass 
grew in the streets, which were full of disgusting filth. ^ 
Night and day pestilential stenches polluted the air. 
The great medieval churches, that now give a unique 
interest to Cologne, were out of repair and bedizened 
with tawdry ornaments. The cathedral, left half-finished 
since the Middle Ages, was encumbered with houses 
and traversed by one of the city streets. 

Ancient fashions persisted long at Cologne. A genera- 
tion before the period we are chiefly considering, a traveler 
observes that "at Cologne the women go veiled, as in 
Italy." ^ As at Augsburg and some other German cities, 
the treatment of the Jews at Cologne was sufficiently 

355 



GERMANY 

illiberal. "Over against Cologne there is a village called 
Deutz, on the other side of the Rhine, inhabited chiefly 
by Jews whom the elector allows to live there, but they 
are not allowed to enter the city without a guard." ^ 

But especially suggestive of the poverty-stricken char- 
acter of the city is the picture drawn by a tourist in the 
latter part of the century: "A great part of the inhab- 
itants are privileged beggars, who form here a regular 
corporation: they sit upon rows of stools, placed in every 
church, and take precedence according to their seniority. 
. . . On the few days of the year when there are no fes- 
tivals, they roam through the city and besiege the travel- 
lers with an insolence and rudeness not to be conceived. 
Upon the whole, Cologne is at least a century behind the 
rest of Germany. Bigotry, ill-manners, clownishness, 
slothfulness are visible everywhere; and the speech, 
dress, ftimiture of the houses, everything, in short, is 
so different from what is seen in the rest of Germany, 
that you conceive yourself in the middle of a colony of 
strangers." ^ 

A few miles below Cologne, on the right bank of the 
Rhine, stood Diisseldorf, described by Nugent as "a 
large, handsome city." ^ Diisseldorf was famous through- 
out Europe , for its gallery of pictures, particularly of 
masters of the Dutch and Flemish schools. Until 1805 
this collection was the chief treasure of the Elector's 
Palace and drew great numbers of visitors. But in that 
year it was transferred to Munich, where it has since 
remained. 

We have followed the course of tourists from Vienna 
across southern Germany, and we have outlined the 
journey along the Rhine. But another route also was very 
popular. Tourists often preferred to go up from Vienna 
through Bohemia to Dresden and Leipsic and Berlin. 
The journey through the dreary plains of Bohemia was 
no great pleasure, for "the peasants were all in a state 
of vassalage to the nobility, and ... a brutish heavy 
kind of people, pretty much addicted to pilfering and 

356 



GERMANY 

thieving." ^ But at Prague one found a beautiful and 
wealthy city, with the nobility and gentry living in lux- 
ury unsurpassed in any other part of Germany. "As to 
company there is no town in the Empire that has a greater 
choice. There are assemblies in the houses of quality 
every night, where they divert themselves with gaming 
and crown the night with good cheer, as pheasants, orto- 
lans, trouts, salmon and cray-fish, with good wine." ^ 

The old capital of Bohemia had, indeed, no lack of 
interest, with its many-arched medieval bridge spanning 
the Moldau, its strong city walls and towers, its great 
ghetto, and on the heights overlooking the city and the 
river the historic palace of the kings — the Hradschin. 
One might well linger at Prague, but we cannot pause 
for more detail. 

From Prague the tourist might go to Eger, or perhaps 
halt for a short stay at the famous Baths of Karlsbad. 
If his fancy led him toward Breslau he went through Kon- 
iggratz and Schweidnitz. A well-known route from Eger 
to Amsterdam ^ conducted him through Culmbach, Bam- 
berg,* Wiirzburg, Aschaffenburg, to Frankfort-on-the- 
Main, and thence down the Rhine to the Dutch capital. 

Few toiuists journeying from Prague to Berlin neg- 
lected to see Dresden and Leipsic. Dresden, the seat of 
the court of the Elector of Saxony, was counted by trav- 
elers of every type as one of the most agreeable cities in 
Germany. Situated on the Elbe, here spanned by a 
monumental stone bridge, and within easy reach of charm- 
ing scenery, it possessed attractions that since the eight- 
eenth centiury have in ever increasing measure made 
it a favorite abode of English-speaking residents. More 
than twice as large as Leipsic, Dresden made far less 
demand upon the tourist's piurse. Says Mariana Starke, 
"The people are quiet, worthy, and very civil to foreigners, 
who live here comfortably at a moderate expense." ^ 
For the majority of the inhabitants economy was made 
necessary by the heavy btirdens imposed by the Seven 
Years' War. But the city made a good appearance and 

357 



GERMANY 

compared favorably with Vienna. The houses were 
"all of freestone, high and substantial; the streets broad, 
straight, well paved, neat, and in the night time well 
lighted." ^ Many houses were spacious and handsomely 
furnished. The traveler who coiild afford the expense 
found at the Hotel de Pologne an inn rivaling the best 
in Europe, where one was entertained in princely style. 

Nearly everything at Dresden was in fact the best of 
its kind. The court was for a time counted one of the 
most brilliant in Europe. And the court band, the theater, 
and the dancers were maintained at vast expense. ^ For 
the tourist of culture the special attraction of Dresden, 
however, was the great gallery of pictures, unsurpassed 
in Germany and one of the finest in Europe. Before 1760 
it contained more than two thousand pieces, among them 
Correggio's "La Notte" and "Mary Magdalene," and 
Raphael's Sistine Madonna. The modem picture-buyer 
smiles to note that the collection was "valued at near 
£500,000." 3 For the Sistine Madonna the price paid was 
about 225,000 francs. 

But tourists were expected to pay handsomely for seeing 
the treasures of Dresden. Early in the century Keysler 
suggests to those who visit the famous "Green Vault" 
that "the fee for seeing this museum is generously dis- 
charged with five or six guldens * given the attendant, 
who opens the doors; but the greatest part of it goes to 
the superintendent, or keeper of the museum. At the 
entrance the shoes of such persons as are admitted are 
carefully wiped, in order to keep the place as free as possible 
from dirt or dust." ^ And late in the centtu-y tourists were 
advised that to see the picture gallery, the treasury, the 
cabinet of antiques, the elector's library, "it is necessary 
over-night to send your name, country, and quality to the 
respective Directors, together with the number of per- 
sons you design bringing, and the hoiirs at which you 
mean to come." ^ 

From Dresden a slight detour to the northwest brought 
one to Leipsic. In the middle of the eighteenth century 

358 



GERMANY 

Leipsic was a city of no more than about thirty thousand 
inhabitants. One could "easily walk round it in the 
compass of an hour." It was fortified, but the walls were 
more suited for a pleasant promenade than for defense. 
An invading army would have found rich spoil in Leipsic. 
Tourists were particularly impressed with "the great mar- 
ket-place, adorned with merchants' houses, which look 
like princely palaces, and make the handsomest figure 
of any buildings of that kind in Europe." ^ Much of the 
older Leipsic still survives, with its quaint sixteenth- 
century Rathhaus, with its houses "of stone or brick, 
six or seven stories high," and its narrow winding streets, 
where a stranger speedily loses his way. 

This "klein Paris," as Goethe called it, was famous for its 
university and for the splendor in which the inhabitants 
lived. "The women dress vastly gay," says Nugent, 
"and are very sumptuous in respect to gold and silver lace 
with which they adorn their caps and gowns. . . . There 
is a great ntunber of chariots in town, which belong to 
physicians, professors, or merchants; for the nobility are 
not allowed to have houses of their own in this city."^ 

Much of this display of wealth was maintained by the 
great fairs, which drew thousands of merchants from every 
part of Europe and even from Asia. After 1764, Leipsic 
won in the competition with Frankfort for the supremacy 
in the publishing of books, and has not since been surpassed 
in this field by any other German city. 

As one result of the prosperity of the city, the cost of 
living was high. "The students are at great expence in 
this town, "says Nugent, "lodging and provisions being very 
dear; but then they have the advantage of mixing with the 
best of company, and acquiring a greater politeness of 
behaviour than in any other German university." ^ 

Along with her devotion to trade Leipsic gloried in the 
reputation of her scholars and men of letters. Here Gott- 
sched ruled as literary dictator in his day. Here lived 
Gellert and Klopstock, and, for a time, the greatest of 
German critics — Lessing. Here came Goethe in the pride 

359 



GERMANY 

of his young manhood and enrolled his name as a student. 
Here, too, came Schiller, and an endless array of other men 
who are not yet forgotten. A city boasting all these attrac- 
tions not unnaturally appealed to the tourist, and Leipsic 
was commonly included in the list of the eight or ten cities 
thought best worth visiting. 

In the very front rank of these cities, stood Berlin. Un- 
like France, Germany has never had a capital, but even 
in the eighteenth century Berlin, though far smaller than 
London or Paris or Vienna, may without question be 
ranked among the foremost cities of Europe. Tourists 
grow enthusiastic over "its spacious, beautiful streets," 
its "royal palace, a magnificent structure of free-stone," 
the churches, the arsenal, the opera house, and the splendors 
of the court, with its throng of nobility and officers of the 
army — the officers of Frederick the Great. A short drive 
to the west of Berlin brought one to Charlottenburg, with 
its Schloss and its gardens. A few miles farther on was 
Potsdam, where Frederick gathered about him some of the 
most brilliant minds of Europe. 

But though regarded as "certainly one of the most beau- 
tiful cities in Europe," ^ Berlin was very far from being the 
great and imposing city that one sees to-day. Indeed, one 
who was familiar with Berlin only a quarter of a century ago 
would hardly recognize the present city. In the last quarter 
of the eighteenth century Dr. Moore remarks: "There 
are a few very magnificent buildings in this town. The rest 
are neat houses, built of a fine white free-stone, generally 
one, or at most two stories high." ^ Then, as now, "the 
most fashionable walk in Berlin" was "in the middle of one 
of the principal streets" — Unter den Linden. The entire 
city was "surrounded with a wall and fortifications in the 
modern way." ^ Such antiquity, however, as marks scores 
of German cities even in our time was entirely lacking. 

Berlin in part attested its claim to be regarded as a great 
center by high prices. Money was "a great deal scarcer 
than at London or Paris, "^ but strangers found "very little 
difference in the ordinary expense of living." ^ Something 

360 



THE OLD TOWN AND CANAL — HAMBURG 



GERMANY 

of a cosmopolitan air was imparted by the "vast number 
of French refugees at Berlin, insomuch that the French 
language" was "almost as commonly spoken and under- 
stood as German. The partiality shewn by the present 
King to the French nation has induced great numbers of 
the inhabitants of that country to flock hither every day, for 
which reason it is called by a great many the Paris of 
Germany." ^ 

There was as yet no university in Berlin, but, like Got- 
tingen and Leipsic and Hamburg, the city was a center of 
great intellectual activity. The Berlin Academy, organized 
on the plans of Leibnitz, counted notable scholars among its 
members, particularly Lessing, who was elected in 1760. 
After the middle of the century, Lessing did much during 
his residence at Berlin to emancipate German literature 
from the trammels in which it had moved. He drew his 
inspiration more from English literature than from French, 
and along with his Jewish friend Moses Mendelssohn, and 
others, he made Berlin widely recognized as a city of 
"enlightenment." To the great Frederick German litera- 
ture owed little immediate encouragement. He was pas- 
sionately devoted to French literature and incapable of 
appreciating the rising German writers that have made 
his reign illustrious, but the political supremacy he gave 
to Prussia brought with it an inevitable advance in all 
departments of culture, and made Berlin a city that no 
intelligent tourist could afford to neglect. 

Very different in type and history was the city of Ham- 
burg.2 This great free city, with its mighty fortifications 
and its picturesque high-gabled houses, saw every year a 
good proportion of the English toiu-ists who visited Ger- 
many. Its wealth and culture, its commercial importance, 
and, in particular, its situation, made it the city with 
which Englishmen very frequently began or ended their 
tour in Germany. Strangers found easy access to the luxu- 
rious society of Hamburg and were made to feel very much 
at home. 

Hamburg, along with Bremen, had remained neutral 

361 



GERMANY 

during the Thirty Years' War, and, except for the in- 
evitable loss of inland trade and the consequent lack of 
employment for the lower classes, sustained no material 
injury. In the eighteenth century it carried on a vast com- 
merce with all parts of Germany and was the richest and 
most important seaport, as well as "the most flourishing 
commercial city, in all Germany." ^ The inhabitants of 
Hamburg were accustomed to deal with affairs in a large 
way, and they were themselves great travelers. 

This commercial supremacy naturally involved easy com- 
munication with other cities and made Hamburg a favorite 
starting-point for the journey to Copenhagen, to Stock- 
holm, and other Baltic ports, to Cologne and Brussels and 
Amsterdam, to Frankfort, Strassburg, and Geneva, and, in 
particular, for the journey to Vienna and intermediate 
cities. The stage-route to Vienna in summer ran through 
Braunschweig, Nuremberg, and Regensburg, where one 
might take the market-boat twice a week down the Dan- 
ube, or continue by land through Passau, Linz, and Krems 
to Vienna, a distance of about five hundred and fifty 
miles.2 Two other routes from Hamburg to Vienna ran, 
one through Berlin and Breslau,' — the longest of all, 
— the other through Leipsic and Prague. Of these three 
routes the last was the shortest. 

Tourists entering or leaving Germany by way of Ham- 
burg got a very favorable view of German culture. Some 
of the most notable men of letters, among them for a time 
Klopstock and Lessing, made their home there. And the 
theater of Hamburg enjoyed a European reputation. 

With Hamburg we may well conclude our survey of 
Germany. Some toiuists, indeed, saw much more of the 
country than we have considered. They made their way 
through the towns along the Baltic coast, — Liibeck, 
Rostock, Stralsund, Stettin, Dantzig, Marienburg, Kon- 
igsberg, and sometimes went as far as Riga or even St. 
Petersburg. Incidentally, too, in other parts of the coun- 
try, English travelers touched a multitude of places that 
we cannot take time to consider. There has, therefore, 

362 



GERMANY 

been no account taken here of Aachen, the ancient city of 
Charlemagne, one of the popular health resorts of north- 
ern Europe;^ of Hanover; of Braunschweig, where were 
"generally some young gentlemen from Britain . . . sent 
to be educated" there; '^ of Regensberg, the imperial city 
abounding in ancient architectiure, and noted for its so- 
ciety; of Schwalbach, famed for its mineral waters; of 
Cassel, of Gotha, of Weimar, of Eisenach, of Jena, of Bam- 
berg, and of scores of other towns that would find due 
place in a systematic guide-book. But the ordinary eight- 
eenth-century tourist woiild, perhaps, hardly feel that he 
had been defrauded by the omission. 



363 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE LOW COUNTRIES 
I 

The trip in the Low Countries might be taken, as it 
often was, as part of a short circular tour by one who ran 
over to the Continent for only a few weeks, but commonly 
it was put in at the beginning or the end of the long Conti- 
nental tour. The Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch 
Provinces were in many respects very different in their 
physical character, their type of population, and the occu- 
pations of the people. We shall therefore do well to con- 
sider separately the two divisions — the Dutch Nether- 
lands, which we commonly know as Holland, and the 
Austrian Netherlands, substantially the same as what we 
now call Belgium. But we need not spend many words on 
either division. 

Tourists in the Low Countries appear, indeed, to have 
done about the same things that tourists now do, if we make 
allowance for the means for rapid travel now at the disposal 
of sight-seers. In the eighteenth century one covered less 
ground in a day, but in countries so diminutive, where 
comparatively little time had to be spent in merely passing 
from place to place, the advantage of feverish haste was 
not evident. All in all, the tour in the Netherlands was 
not so highly esteemed as the tour through France or Italy. ^ 
Yet there was no lack of curious strangers. In the first 
quarter of the seventeenth century, Howell tells us, "There 
is no part of Europe so haunted with all sorts of foreigners 
as the Netherlands, which makes the inhabitants, as well 
women as men, so well versed in all sorts of languages, so 
that, at Exchange time, one may hear seven or eight sorts 
of tongues spoken upon their burses; nor are the men 

364 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

only expert herein, but the women and maids in their 
common hostries." ' 

^ Holland was for its size "the richest country of the Con- 
tinent," and the Bank of Holland at Amsterdam was 
"supposed to contain more treasure than all the banks of 
Europe." 2 The Dutch people were notable for their fru- 
gality. » "One would think they suck in with their milk a 
desire and thirst of gain. . . . They are given to drinking, 
as well as all the northern nations, but especially when they 
treat their friends, which they do very elegantly, tho' per- 
haps they save it out of their bellies the rest of the week. 
They affect to be neat in their houses and furniture to a 
degree of excess; for they continually wash and rub their 
goods, even the benches, and the least plank, not forgetting 
the stairs, at the bottom of which most of them pull off 
their shoes before they go up. Even the very streets are 
kept wonderfully clean, the servants of each house being 
obliged every day to wash and rub the pavement before 
their door." ^ 

As for Dutch society, it lacked the sparkle and brilliancy 
of the society of Paris, Rome, and Vienna; and then as 
now comparatively few English took the pains to seek 
admittance to it. What chiefly attracted the tourist in 
Holland was the quaint survivals in dress and manners 
and architecture that met him not only in little towns, but 
in great cities. His stay was commonly not long at any one 
place, but as in other countries he was likely to make his way 
to some of the more notable cities. 

English tourists had more than one reason to feel some- 
what at home in Holland. For generations this little coun- 
try had been a refuge for Englishmen who were unwel- 
come at home. Then, too, the active commerce with 
Holland compelled the presence of considerable English 
colonies in more than one seaport. From Rotterdam, says 
Nugent, "sometimes three hundred British vessels go out 
at once." ^ Here were two English churches, and "two 
or three English houses for the accommodation of travel- 
lers." « There were enough English at Amsterdam to sup- 

. 365 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

port an English church. At Middleburg there was one Eng- 
lish church, and at Dordrecht there were two. 

Most of the places that claimed the attention of the 
tourist were the same that strangers commonly visit to-day. 
The ordinary round in Holland included Middleburg, 
Dordrecht, Rotterdam, Delft, The Hague, Leyden, Haar- 
lem, Amsterdam, Utrecht, and Gouda, with a possible run 
to Amheim or Zutfen or to s'Hertogenbosch,^ and Nime- 
guen. The eighteenth-century accounts of the towns of 
Holland seem very modem. Holland has, indeed, changed 
singularly little in outward appearance in the course of 
two centuries. There are now fewer walled towns,^ and 
there is electric or steam transportation everjrwhere ; but 
the general aspect of most Dutch towns is much the same 
as in Dutch pictures of the seventeenth century. 

What Lady Mary Wortley Montagu remarked in 17 16 
continued true in the main throughout the eighteenth cen- 
tury: "Sure nothing can be more agreeable than travel- 
ling in Holland. The whole country appears a large garden ; 
the roads are well paved, shaded on each side with rows of 
trees and bordered with large canals, full of boats, passing 
and repassing. Every twenty paces gives you the prospect 
of some villa, and every four hours that of a large town, so 
surprisingly neat, I am sure you would be charmed with 
them." 8 

It is not to be supposed, however, that a century and a 
half can pass over a country without leaving traces, and it 
is, of course, in the towns that one notes the most marked 
changes since the grand tour went out of fashion. To a 
few of these towns we may now give a word or two of com- 
ment. Rotterdam was, "next to Amsterdam, the most 
trading town in the United Provinces,"* and "the usual 
landing place of strangers."^ "There is," says Nugent, 
"always a large number of British subjects who reside in 
this town, and live much in the same manner as in Great 
Britain?" ^ In our day Rotterdam offers little of artistic 
or architectural interest, and in the eighteenth century it 
offered still less. 

366 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

A short journey by canal brought one from Rotterdam to 
Delft. Delft was notable in the eighteenth century as "a 
very agreeable quiet place, being the retreat of wealthy 
merchants who have left off business." ^ The memory of 
William the Silent and his tragic end pervaded the little 
city, but, apart from the old Prinsenhof , where William was 
assassinated, and the chtu"ch containing his tomb, there was 
little at Delft to detain the sight-seer. A writer in 1743 com- 
plains that most tourists are so much in a hurry "to secure 
the first boat that goes off for The Hague" as not to allow 
themselves "sufficient time for viewing so considerable a 
city." 2 

The Hague was justly popular with the English, who 
there made themselves very much at home and had their 
own inns and coffee-houses.^ This city was noted for the 
magnificence of its buildings, the width of its streets, and 
the great number of its squares and its shade trees. All 
about The Hague were "beautiful coimtry houses, mag- 
nificent gardens, fine meadows or charming villages." * 
In the city itself, before excessive gaming became "the 
reigning passion of the place," ^ one of the favorite diver- 
sions was to "walk on the Mall and to watch the fine 
coaches." 

Fashions at The Hague were very arbitrary. "People 
observe forms here more than they do at the Court of Great 
Britain. They know nothing of a morning imdress. Were 
a person of equality to appear in the Mall at The Hague 
equipped like his footman, every body would believe him 
out of his senses." ^ 

At The Hague gaming was the chief diversion, as 
was the case in most of the other capitals of Europe. 
"Those, however, who do not play are not thought so im- 
fashionable and ill-bred, and consequently are not so much 
out of countenance here as at Paris or London." ^ The 
same author remarks: "The inhabitants of The Hague are 
more genteel, conversible, and civil to strangers, than 
those of the other cities of the provinces. It must, how- 
ever, be owned, that they are as defective in point of 

367 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

hospitality, as those of the other cities. They hardly know 
what it is to invite a stranger to drink a glass of wine, or a 
dish of tea, and much less to a dinner. They excuse this 
excess of parsimony by saying, that were they to give in to 
the custom of entertainments, as practised in other coun- 
tries, they should soon be undone, in effect of being visited 
by so great a number of strangers."^ 

A characteristic eighteenth-century attraction of The 
Hague was "the Spin-house, or house of correction for such 
young women as have made a false step. . . . Everybody is 
admitted to see them, paying two-pence to the porter." ^ 
But the picture gallery which is now the goal of most vis- 
itors to The Hague had not yet been established. 

When one tired of the town one could drive down to the 
beach. Scheveningen was not yet the popiilar watering- 
place for The Hague and all Holland that it now is. "The 
village consists of one pretty street, with the church at the 
farther end of it." ^ But even in the eighteenth century 
tourists agreed that "there is not a pleasanter or more 
refreshing place anywhere for coaches, chaises, or people 
on foot than the sands, especially when the sea is out." ^ 
The great hotels that now overlook the beach were of 
course not even planned, but such accommodations as there 
were anticipated modem conditions at Scheveningen, in 
at least one particular. Hungry sight-seers sometimes got 
a meal at one of the fishermen's houses. "The largest of 
them stands on the downs, and has a prospect to the sea, 
being an inn where you may go and have a dinner drest, if 
you like to pay for it twice as much as it is worth; for all 
the innkeepers of this place are remarkable for large bills." * 
Overreaching was, indeed, the besetting sin of the Dutch, 
particularly if one was so simple as to trust to the honor of 
the innkeeper, the postilion, the porter, or the master of 
the post-chaises,^ and could point to no recognized tariff 
in case of a dispute. 

But we must pass on to Amsterdam, on the way noting 
that Leyden and Haarlem were each famous, the one for 
its university and the other for its great organ, its pic- 

. 368 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

tures, and its tulip gardens. Leyden was the largest 
town in Holland next to Amsterdam.^ Leyden and 
Haarlem were, however, provincial, while Amsterdam took 
its place as one of the three greatest cities in Christendom. 
"It is," says Nugent, "certainly one of the greatest ports 
in the known world for trade, and perhaps inferior to 
none for riches." ^ 

Notwithstanding the wealth of the city, coaches were 
few, since not many persons, "except strangers and phy- 
sicians," were allowed to have them. The houses were 
built upon piles, and it was feared that the jarring of car- 
riages would injure them. "There is a greater number 
of sleds," says Nugent, "which are a heavy, unpleasant 
carriage, and fit for none but old women." ^ As for trans- 
portation on the canals, it was not particularly agree- 
able in hot weather on account of the fetid odors. The 
favorite promenade was along the town walls, where was 
a "dyke shaded by two rows of trees." " 

As might be expected in a preeminently commercial 
community, money was "adored here more than in 
any other country," and, according to Nugent, supplied 
"the place of birth, wit, and merit." ^ The wealth of 
the city was evidenced by the streets, some of which 
were counted among the finest in Europe — the Heeren 
Gracht, the Keizers Gracht, the Prinsen Gracht — with 
canals down through the center. Already famous was 
Kalver Straat, in our day one of the busiest streets in 
the world. 

Particulariy notable among the sights of Amsterdam 
was the State House, which even eighteenth-century tour- 
ists criticized for the lack of a fitting entrance. None 
of the churches was remarkable. As at The Hague, a 
favorite sight was the Spin-House, "where they lock up 
lewd women. . . . Those under whose custody they are, 
who look like grave and sober matrons, permit gentlemen 
for a trifle of money (that Dutch god) to have access to 
them, so as to speak to one another through the grates; 
on which occasion it is customary for them to entertain 

369 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

their visitors with such abominable discourses and in- 
decent actions as are shocking to men of any sense or 
morahty." ^ "It is also customary for strangers to see 
something of the famous Spiel-houses or music houses in 
this city. These are a kind of taverns and halls where 
young people of the meaner sort, both men and women, 
meet for dancing." ^ 

Besides these moderately edifying amusements, the 
tourist interested in art found much at Amsterdam to 
occupy him if he secured admittance to private gal- 
leries, but the magnificent collection which is now the 
pride of all Holland was not yet brought together. All 
in all, there was a good deal of humdrum at Amsterdam; 
and one who had traversed all Europe in search of excite- 
ment found Amsterdam tame in comparison with Paris 
or Naples or Rome or Vienna. If one was interested in 
trade, one did well to tarry at Amsterdam, but as for 
sight-seeing an experienced tourist could exhaust the place 
in a few days. 

We need not take the time to traverse the country in 
detail, but we may note that Holland in the eighteenth 
century attracted Englishmen, and particularly young 
Scotchmen, of wealth, to go there to complete their edu- 
cation.^ Commonly, their work at the university was 
supplemented by a tour in France, which familiarized 
them with French manners and French morals — or what 
passed as such. For higher education, particularly in 
medicine and law, Utrecht was famous and drew to the 
university "a great number of foreigners, among the rest 
some English." * James Boswell went to Utrecht as a 
student of law in 1763. Goldsmith was for a time at Ley- 
den. A writer in 1743, comparing Leyden and Utrecht, 
remarks: "Dress is not at all regarded at Leyden, and 
rich clothes are in contempt there. In Utrecht they affect 
more politeness, and always go abroad drest. They all 
wear swords." ^ 

A short run from Utrecht towards Rotterdam en- 
abled one to visit the old church of Gouda, with its 

370 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

famous windows, containing the finest painted glass in 
Holland. 

As already remarked, a good nimiber of English regu- 
larly resided in Holland, but few English tourists made 
a long stay there, and fewer still got enough acquaintance 
with Dutch to converse freely with the common people. 
Such social intercoturse as there was between the natives 
and the tourists was commonly carried on in French or 
English. The Dutch people of the higher classes, we are 
told, "imitate the French in their dress, their mien, talk, 
diet, gallantry, or debauchery, but mimic them very 
aiikwardly." ^ To the Dutch people, the English, with 
comparatively few exceptions, were mere birds of passage. 
And as for the reserved English, they found in the Dutch 
a stolid indifference that permitted the tourist to flit 
past without suffering the annoyance of excessive cour- 
tesy. Among themselves, Dutch families, interrelated 
in manifold ways throughout Holland, exchanged visits 
with commendable zeal, keeping accurate count of the 
obligations incurred, and repaying them in due season. 
But with strangers as guests the obligations would have 
been all on the wrong side of the social ledger; and to the 
thrifty the returns seemed hardly to justify the outlay of 
trouble and expense. 

II 

In the Austrian Netherlands tourists saw a good num- 
ber of the towns and, particularly in Flanders, founJl 
"the inhabitants . . . more polite and hospitable than 
those of Holland, being an open and freehearted people." ^ 
One went, of course, to Antwerp and Brussels, and if time 
permitted, to Ghent and Bruges, to Ypres, Toiunay, 
Dinant, Namiir, and Liege. Especially popular was Spa, 
which might almost be counted as the typical Continental 
watering-place in the eighteenth century. Ostend and 
Blankenbergh, we may note, had not yet become seaside 
resorts. 

Antwerp was noted for the number and beauty of its 

371 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

churches, and in particiilar for the vast cathedral with 
its soaring spire, the favorite subject of more than one 
Flemish painter; but the greed of the Dutch in closing 
the Scheldt to commerce, by sinking ships filled with 
stones and by driving palisades, made the city a dull, 
deserted place, with grass growing in the streets. Says 
James Edward Smith, "Surely the inhabitants have need 
of every sort of dissipation to make existence tolerable 
in so gloomy and lifeless a town." * 

Brussels, on the other hand, was prosperous, and was 
counted "one of the most beautiful and brilliant cities in 
Europe." The great number of well-to-do, unoccupied 
strangers there gave it the appearance of a watering-place. 
Social intercourse was easy and morality not too rigid. 
The inhabitants were noted for affability and politeness. 
Their private picture galleries they very courteously showed 
to strangers. In the palaces of the nobility there were 
notable collections of the greatest Flemish and Italian 
masters. The water supply of Brussels vied with that of 
Rome itself, and the "inns or eating houses" were "equal 
to any in Europe." How cheap they were we have seen 
elsewhere .2 In a way Brussels was a small copy of Paris, 
but the imitation was very transparent and deceived no- 
body. For a short stay, however, Brussels was extremely 
agreeable, and whoever toured the Low Countries included 
Brussels in his route as a matter of course. 

Very different in character was Bruges, with its silent, 
glassy canals bordered with huge windmills, its decayed 
and mouldered aspect. At every turn one saw traces 
of departed wealth and greatness — in the vast square 
once filled with busy traders from every country in Europe 
and from remote comers of Asia, in the richly adorned 
ancient houses, in the mighty Halles, with lofty tower and 
tinkling chimes, and in the immense churches, filled with 
exquisite works of art. The charm of the old city was felt 
even in the eighteenth century, though many of the artistic 
treasures of the medieval period were not duly prized 
until a later day. 

372 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

Another survival from the Middle Ages was Ypres, 
once a city counting its inhabitants by scores of thou- 
sands but long since reduced to the rank of a small town. 
Here, too, the Grand Place, one of the largest in Europe, 
the long Gothic arcades of the Cloth Halls, the beautiful 
cathedral, and many other ancient buildings gave a sug- 
gestion of the greatness of Ypres in the days when its name 
was known beyond the seas. 

We cannot linger at Toumay, with its sleepy old streets 
and its many-towered cathedral, or at Namur, with its 
famous citadel, but we must give a word to Liege and 
Spa. Liege was noted for its wealth and the magni- 
ficence of its buildings, particidarly of the churches, a 
reputation well deserved even in the opinion of our day. 
Particularly was it desirable as a place of residence. "The 
gentlemen of Liege," says Nugent, "are affable and 
courteous to strangers. The inns are very good, and pro- 
visions extremely cheap; and there are few places in 
Europe where one has a greater variety of better wines. 
In short, a gentleman of a small estate cannot live in any 
place in the world more comfortably than at Liege." ^ 

But as a resort for pleasure-seekers no place in the 
Netherlands, and few in Europe, rivaled Spa. In the 
middle of the eighteenth century the town consisted of 
four streets in the form of a cross and contained about four 
hundred houses. During the months of Jime, Jtily, and 
August it was overrun with tourists, who came to drink 
the waters and participate in the gay life. In August 
of 1768 the Earl of Carlisle writes to Selwyn that he has 
found many friends there, and he adds: "I rise at six; am 
on horseback till breakfast ; play at cricket till dinner ; and 
dance in the evening till I can scarce crawl to bed at eleven. 
This is a life for you." ^ 

Charles James Fox was here with the family party in 
1 77 1 and had no difficulty in dissipating some of the 
paternal wealth. In August, 1767, Lady Sarah Bun- 
bury, writing to Selwyn from Spa, says, "I like this place 
very much"; and such was the verdict of most English 

373 



THE LOW COUNTRIES 

tourists. We might cite a long list of titled visitors, both 
men and women, but for our purpose this is unnecessary. 
We have now completed our survey of some of the most 
representative of the towns that attracted eighteenth- 
century tourists. The list is in no sense exhaustive, and 
in the nature of the case could not be, but it is sufficiently 
extended to indicate with reasonable accuracy the lines of 
travel most followed a century and a half ago by those 
who traveled for amusement or for intellectual profit. 



374 



CHAPTER XV^ 

CONTEMPORARY COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 



One who has followed the course of the tourist as out- 
lined in the preceding pages needs little further comment 
upon the value of the grand tour as a system of education. 
If the tourist was prepared to take advantage of the op- 
portunities so richly offered, the returns were of almost 
incalciilable value. What the educational possibilities 
of well-directed travel were we may see in its influence 
upon an eager young tourist like Goethe. And he was 
merely an unusually brilliant type of what many English 
travelers strove to be. One naturally thinks of Milton, of 
Evelyn, of Addison, of Gray. Many EngHshmen, doubt- 
less the majority, traveled superficially, but as a class they 
had the reputation, not only of being the most numerous 
toiirists on the Continent, but — with the possible ex- 
ception of the Germans — of deriving more profit from 
their journeys than any other travelers. 

Even to the dullest dolt there was something in St. 
Peter's, in the Bay of Naples, in the ascent of Vesuvius, 
to stir the blood and give a fillip to the imagination. In 
general, we may safely venture the opinion that when a 
reasonably mature young man of good ability and some 
self-restraint went abroad with a tolerable education and 
spent his time in mastering the languages of the Continent, 
in becoming familiar with the art, the architecture, the 
social usages, the history, the systems of government, of 
the various countries he visited, he could hardly have 
employed his time more profitably. The studious and 
open-minded tourist enlarged his view of mankind, learned 
tolerance, discovered what was worthy of imitation, grew 

375 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

more polished in manners, and became a citizen of the 
world. 

Like most things human, the grand tour was neither 
wholly good nor wholly bad. But the young tourist was 
too often a mere unlicked cub, who brought to the study 
of the art of Florence and the antiquities of Rome the 
taste and the manners of Tony Lumpkin. Naturally, as 
is the case with most questions where the terms are ill- 
defined, there was great divergence of opinion as to the 
value of the grand tour. Tourists differed widely in 
character and aims and attainments and signally failed 
in many cases to profit by their opportunities, even when 
they escaped moral contamination. Those who saw mainly 
the evils were not disposed to minimize them: those, on 
the other hand, who realized the humanizing influence of 
the study of other lands and peoples stoutly maintained 
that the good results far exceeded the bad ; that those who 
went astray on the Continent would have done the same 
at home; and that sooner or later a young man must be 
left to direct his own steps. With this wide diversity 
of opinion concerning the influence of foreign travel, we 
cannot safely make a sweeping generalization. Not- 
withstanding the fact that travelers tended to follow 
beaten tracks and that they saw many of the same things, 
no tour exactly duplicated another in its details and in 
the impression that it made on the sight-seer. 

For most young fellows the grand tour involved a 
large expenditure of time and money for which they 
got comparatively small return. For them the long 
stay abroad was not a time for serious study: for that 
they had no taste and, in their own opinion, probably, 
no need; but it was a glorious opportunity for a long- 
continued lark. The theoretical advantages offered by 
the opportunities for study abroad were more than offset 
in practice by the difficulties in the way of carrying through 
any systematic course of training. High-spirited young 
men were little disposed to listen with patience to the pre- 
cepts of the underpaid and low-bom tutor who accom- 

376 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

panied them. Discipline at a distance of hundreds of 
miles from the home authority must have been sadly 
relaxed. Going abroad as young lords of the earth, with 
abundance of money, exuberant health, and little feeling 
of responsibility, they put a heavy burden upon their 
tutors and upon the courtesy of the strangers with whom 
they came in contact. But these tourists were- to all in- 
tents boys, and they acted like boys. At the monastery 
of St. Dominic in Rome, relates Breval: "One of the 
Fathers who was doing the Honours of the Monastery to 
some of our young Countrymen, thought he paid them 
a very great Compliment in plucking off some of the 
Sanctified Fruit, and presenting them with it; The Reader 
may imagine how scandalized the good Man was, when 
he observ'd his Strangers soon after pelting one another 
in Jest with his Dominic's Oranges." * 

II 

But it may be worth while to put together a few con- 
temporary estimates of the value of travel to the average 
young tourist in order that we may appreciate in some 
measure the atmosphere in which he moved and see how 
those who best knew him regarded the educational product 
that came back from the Continent. 

The educational value of the grand tour was for genera- 
tions one of the most warmly debated questions in English 
society. What the grand tour proposed we have already 
considered in some detail. The aims of the system at its 
best could certainly not be bettered. They involved noth- 
ing less than a mastery of all that was best worth learning 
in every country that was visited. Positively appalling is 
the programme laid down in some of the books designed 
to guide the steps of young travelers. Only by a miracle 
could one who had passed through such a training in all its 
details escape becoming an insufferable prig. 

But what was the actual effect upon the average young 
Englishman of the long stay upon the Continent? The an- 

377 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

swer is not easy, but there are a good many facts that are 
suggestive. Scattered up and down eighteenth-century 
literature and works of travel we find no lack of criticism 
of the fellows who traveled with tutors nearly as ignorant 
as themselves, learning nothing of value, and spending 
their money with thoughtless profusion. The average, 
plodding, conscientious tourist attracted little notice and 
afforded no mark for the satirist. The roistering spend- 
thrift, on the other hand, invited criticism that was some- 
times extended to those who did not deserve it. 

The seamy side of the grand tour drew the attention not 
merely of piuitanic moralists and fussy schoolmasters, but 
of men of the world who had themselves trodden the prim- 
rose path. The fact that writers of very different type 
strike at the same evil affords added proof that it really 
existed. The substance of the criticism, which though 
varied in source is singularly alike in the final impression 
that it leaves, we might present in few words and without 
the otherwise inevitable repetition — of opinion if not of 
phraseology — but we should thereby lose the contempo- 
rary flavor and some of the point. In any case it will re- 
quire but a few pages to present representative contem- 
porary opinion of the value of the grand tour from the time 
of Locke and Pope to that of Cowper and Bums and Dr. 
Moore. 

Locke had seen a good deal of life on the Continent, and 
he presents the view of a philosophical observer at the "close 
of the seventeenth century: "The last part usuallyln edu- 
cation is travel, which is commonly thought to finish the 
work, and complete the gentleman. I confess travel into 
foreign parts has great advantages, but the time usually 
chosen to send young men abroad, is, I think, of all other, 
that which renders them least capable of reaping those 
advantages.^ . . . But from sixteen to one and twenty, 
which is the ordinary time of travel, men are of all their 
lives, the least suited to these improvements. The first 
season to get foreign languages and form the tongue to 
their true accents, I should think, should be from seven to 

378 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

foiirteen or sixteen, and then, too, a tutor with them is 
useful and necessary, who may, with those languages, 
teach them other things. But to put them out of their par- 
ents' view at a great distance, under a governor, when they 
think themselves to be too much men to be governed by 
others, and yet have not prudence and experience enough 
to govern themselves, what is it, but to expose them to all 
the greatest dangers of their whole life when they have the 
least fence and guard against them? . . . The time, there- 
fore, I should think the fittest for a young gentleman to be 
sent abroad, would be, either when he is younger, under a 
tutor, whom he might be the better for; or when he is some 
years old, without a governor; when he is of age to gov- 
ern himself, and make observations of what he finds in 
other countries worthy his notice, and that might be of 
use to him after his return; and when too, being acquainted 
with the laws and fashions, the natural and moral advan- 
tages and defects of his own coimtry, he has something to 
exchange with those abroad, from whose conversation he 
hoped to reap any knowledge. The ordering of travel 
otherwise is that, I imagine, which makes so many young 
gentlemen come back so little improved by it: And if 
they do bring home with them any knowledge of the 
places and people they have seen, it is often an admiration 
of theworst and vainest practices they met with abroad. . . . 
And indeed how can it be otherwise, going abroad at the 
age they do under the care of another, who is to provide 
their necessaries, and make their observations for them? 
Thus under the shelter and pretence of a governor, think- 
ing themselves excused from standing upon their own legs, 
or being accountable for their conduct, they very seldom 
trouble themselves with inquiries, or making useful obser- 
vations of their own. ... He that is sent out to travel at 
the age and with the thoughts of a man designing to im- 
prove himself, may get into the conversation and acquaint- 
ance of persons of condition where he comes; which, though 
a thing of most advantage to a gentleman that travels; 
yet I ask, amongst our young men, that go abroad under 

379 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

tutors, what one is there of an hundred that ever visits any 
person of quality? much less make an acquaintance with 
such from whose conversation he may learn what is good 
breeding in that country, and what is worth observation 
in it; though from such persons it is, one may learn more 
in one day, than in a year's rambling from one inn to an- 
other. This, how true soever it be, will not, I fear, alter the 
custom, which has cast the time of travel upon the worst 
part of a man's life; but for reasons not taken from their 
improvement." ^ 

At the beginning of the eighteenth century an English 
tourist, by no means unduly prejudiced in favor of the 
Continent, remarks upon his countrymen in the dedica- 
tion of his book : "Too many of them go into foreign regions 
to gather their trifles and follies, and to forget, nay, 
often to hate their own country; and few have either the 
means or the capacity to make those useful observations 
that may be serviceable to their own reputation or their 
country." ^ 

In general agreement with these views is a paper in the 
"Spectator"^ for April 28, 17 12, which comments on a 
young fellow being taken by his mother to travel in France 
and Italy: "From hence my Thoughts took Occasion to 
ramble into the general Notion of Travelling, as it is now 
made a Part of Education. Nothing is more frequent than 
to take a Lad from Grammar and Taw, and under the 
Tuition of some poor Scholar who is willing to be banished 
for thirty Pounds a Year, and a little Victuals, send him 
crying and snivelling into foreign Countries. Thus he 
spends his time as Children do at Puppet-Shows, and with 
much the same Advantage, in staring and gaping at an 
amazing Variety of strange things: strange indeed to one 
who is not prepared to comprehend the Reasons and 
Meaning of them: whilst he should be laying the solid 
Foundations of Knowledge in his Mind, and furnishing it 
with just Rules to direct his future Progress in Life under 
some skilful Master of the Art of Instruction. ... I wish. 
Sir, you would make People understand, that Travel 

380 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

is really the last Step to be taken in the Institution of 
Youth, and to set out with it is to begin where they should 
end." 

. Incomparably more brilliant than these mild criticisms 
are Pope's famous lines in the "Dunciad," ^ in which he 
traces the path of the brainless and dissipated spendthrift 
through Europe. Every stroke tells, and the picture is 
literally true. Addressing the Goddess of Dulness on her 
throne the attendant orator of her court presents the 
youth on his return from abroad : — 

"Thro' School and College, thy kind cloud o'ercast, 
Safe and unseen the young ^neas past: 
Thence bursting glorious, all at once let down, 
Stunn'd with his giddy Larum half the town. 
Intrepid then, o'er seas and lands he flew: 
Europe he saw, and Europe saw him too. 
There all thy gifts and graces we display, 
Thou, only thou, directing all our way! 
To where the Seine, obsequious as she runs, 
Pours at great Bourbon's feet her silken sons; 
Or Tiber, now no longer Roman, rolls. 
Vain of Italian arts, Italian souls: 
To happy Convents, bosom'd deep in vines, 
Where slumber Abbots, purple as their wines; 
To Isles of fragrance, lily-sUver'd vales, 
Diffusing languor in the panting gales: 
To lands of singing, or of dancing slaves, 
Love-whisp'ring woods, and lute-resounding waves. 
But chief her shrine where naked Venus keeps. 
And Cupids ride the Lion of the Deeps; 
Where, eas'd of Fleets, the Adriatic main 
Wafts the smooth Eunuch and enamour'd swain. 
Led by my hand, he saunter'd Europe round, 
And gather'd ev'ry Vice on Christian ground; 
Saw ev'ry Court, heard ev'ry King declare 
His royal sense of Op'ras or the Fair; 
The Stews and Palace equally explor'd 

Intrigu'd with glory and with spirit w ; 

Try'd all hors d'ceuvres, all liqueurs defin'd. 
Judicious drank, and greatly daring din'd; 
Dropt the dull lumber of the Latin store, 
SpoU'd his own language and acquir'd no more; 
All Classic learning lost on Classic ground. 
And last tum'd Air, the Echo of a Sound! 
See now, half-cur'd and perfectly well-bred. 
With nothing but a Solo in his head." 

381 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

With probably more real concern for the welfare of his 
countrymen, Gilbert West's rather dull poem on "The 
Abuse of Travelling"^ presents fifty-eight Spenserian 
stanzas of mild satire on the young fellows who ape foreign 
fashions and foreign vices. He commends the law of an- 
cient Sparta that forbade the young Spartan to travel. 
Vagueness pervades the whole poem. The following lines 
presumably refer to France : — 

"For to that seminary of fashions vain 
The rich and noble from all parts repair, 
Where grown enamour'd of the gaudy train, 
And courteous haviour gent and debonair, 
They cast to imitate such semblaunce fair; 
And deeming meanly of their native land, 
Their own rough virtues they disdain to wear. 
And back returning drest by foreign hand, 
Ne other matter care, ne other understand." 

Of a very different type, but not less convincing, is 
Chesterfield's contribution to the "World" for May 3, 
1753, in the form of a pretended letter from a country 
gentleman on educating a son and daughter abroad: "We 
complied with custom in the education of both. My daugh- 
ter learned some French and some dancing; and my son 
passed nine years at Westminster School in learning the 
words of two languages, long since dead, and not yet above 
half revived. When I took him away from school, I resolved 
to send him directly abroad, having been at Oxford myself." 

The gentleman's wife approved the design, but urged her 
husband to take also the daughter and herself and live 
abroad. The daughter joined in the petition: "'Ay, dear 
papa,' said she, 'let us go with brother to Paris; it will 
be the charmingest thing in the world; we shall see all the 
newest fashions there; I shall learn to dance of Marseille; 
in short, I shall be quite another creature after it. You see 
how my cousin Kitty was improved by going to Paris last 
year; I hardly knew her again when she came back: do, 
dear papa, let us go.' . . .1 found by all this, that the attack 
upon me was a concerted one, and that both my wife and 
daughter were strongly infected with that migrating distem- 

382 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

per, which has of late been so epidemical in this kingdom, 
and which annually canies such numbers of our private 
families to Paris, to expose themselves there as English, 
and here, after their return, as French. Insomuch that I 
am assured that the French call those swarms of English 
which now, in a manner, overrun France, a second incursion 
of the Goths and Vandals." 

The father's consent is at length extorted, and the family- 
cross the Channel to Calais, suffering from seasickness on 
the way. At Calais "the inexorable custom-house officers 
took away half the few things which we had carried with 
us." On the road the hired chaises "broke down with us 
at least every ten miles. Twice we were overturned, and 
some of us hurt, though there are no bad roads in France. 
At length, the sixth day, we got to Paris." At Paris he 
finds his expenses far larger than he had expected. He 
had supposed that five thousand livres would suffice, but 
he is told that five or six times that amount will not be too 
much. And we soon learn why. 

"In about three days the several mechanics who were 
charged with the care of disguising my wife and daughter, 
brought home their respective parts of the transformation, 
in order that they might appear honnetement. More than 
the whole morning was employed in this operation ; for we 
did not sit down to dinner till near five o'clock. When my 
wife and daughter came at last into the eating room, where 
I had waited for them at least two hours, I was so struck 
with their transformation that I could neither conceal nor 
express my astonishment. 'Now, my dear,' said my wife, 
*we can appear a little like Christians.' Their faces were 
red and their hair powdered. Each wore a pompon, a 
complication of shreds and rags of velvets, feathers and 
ribands, stuck with false stones of a thousand colours, and 
placed awry. . . , From this period to the time of our 
return to England, every day produced some new and shin- 
ing folly, and some improper expense. Would to God that 
they had ended as they began, with our journey ! but un- 
fortunately we have imported them all. I no longer under- 

383 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

stand, or am understood, in my family. I hear of nothing 
but le bon ton. A French valet de chambre, who, I am told, 
is an excellent servant and fit for anything, is brought over 
to curl my wife's and my daughter's hair, to mount a des- 
sert, as they call it, and occasionally to announce visits. 
A very slatternly, dirty, but at the same time a very gen- 
teel French maid, is appropriated to the use of my daughter. 
My meat, too, is as much disguised in the dressing by a 
French cook, as my wife and daughter are by their red, 
their pompons, their scraps of dirty gauze, flimsy satins, 
and black calicoes; not to mention their affected broken 
English, and mangled French, which, jumbled together, 
compose their present language. My French and English 
servants quarrel daily, and fight, for want of words to 
abuse one another. My wife is become ridiculous by being 
translated into French, and the version of my daughter will, 
I dare say, hinder many a worthy English gentleman from 
trying to read her. My expence, and consequently my debt, 
increases; and I am made more unhappy by follies than 
most other people are by crimes." * 

Chesterfield's satire is meaningless unless it may be 
taken to apply in a good number of cases, and we have no 
lack of evidence that it did. At all events, it undoubtedly 
expresses his settled conviction, which grew stronger with 
years, that foreign travel was a great hazard for persons 
who were immature in mind or character. In his will be- 
queathing his property to his godson Philip, he specifies 
that the young man is by "no means [to] go into Italy . . . 
the foul sink of illiberal manners and vices." ^ Needless to 
say, Chesterfield was no strait-laced Puritan, but in every 
sense a man of the world. Yet even he could not escape 
seeing what was notorious. 

Many sober judges, more concerned than Chesterfield 
for morals and religion, feared the influence of a foreign 
education upon the character. Spence tells us: "Lord 
Cowper on his deathbed ordered that his son should never 
travel. ... He had found that there was little to be hoped, 
and much to be feared, from travelling." 

384 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

Another writer in the "World" expresses his concern 
because "the majority of our young travellers return home, 
entirely divested of the religion of their country, without 
having acquired any new one in its place." ^ The danger 
to an immature youth in being sent abroad with abun- 
dance of money, little to do, and practically no restraint 
but his own untrained sense of propriety, seems, indeed, 
obvious enough. 

Less occupied with the serious side of life, Samuel Foote, 
with his keen sense of the ridiculous, saw the absurdity of 
much of the ill-considered touring on the Continent, and 
on the stage he unsparingly satirized the "Englishman 
in Paris" and the "Englishman Returned from Paris." 
Particularly in the latter piece (1756) does young Buck, 
with his affected manners and the mangled French that 
he uses in place of the English he pretends to have for- 
gotten, illustrate the type of tourist who has ceased to be 
an Englishman without succeeding in becoming a French- 
man — a contemptible, grimacing nobody who has learned 
from his tour only how to play the fool. In Foote's 
"Trip to Calais" and the later, altered version, "The Capu- 
chin," he hits at the ignorance, the bad manners, and the 
extravagance of the English who flocked to the Continent. 
In all these pieces Foote makes great use of interlarded 
French terms, ridiculously misused. 

There was beyond question danger that the young 
tourist might be transformed, not merely into a chattering 
ape, but a leering satyr. For many tourists the life abroad 
was a mere rake's progress from which they returned with 
broken health and empty purse. Young Englishmen of 
good country families were sometimes put to school for 
two or three years at London to rid them of their provincial 
dialect and then sent to Paris to get a knowledge of the 
world. Here they made themselves experts in judging 
French ragouts and fricandeaus, despising ever after the un- 
adorned products of the English kitchen, but they got no 
solid attainments, and could talk on nothing of importance. 
They "returned ignorant of everything they ought to know, 

385 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

their minds corrupted, their bodies debilitated by a 
course of premature debauchery." ^ In their conceit they 
sneered at the plain people who lacked the frivolous 
accomplishments on which they valued themselves so 
highly. 

Without doubt, for troops of immature young fellows 
who had no particular purpose in life, the stay abroad 
meant a swift degeneration in character. Sterne knew 
whereof he spoke when, in his famous sermon on the 
Prodigal Son, he dwelt at length "upon that fatal passion 
which led him — and so many thousands after the example, 
to gather all he had together and take his journey into a Jar 
country. 

'"The love of variety or curiosity of seeing new things, 
which is the same, or at least a sister passion to it, — seems 
wove into the frame of every son and daughter of Adam; 
we usually speak of it as one of nature's levities, though 
planted within us for the solid purposes of carrying for- 
ward the mind to fresh inquiry and knowledge; strip us 
of it, the mind (I fear) would doze forever over the present 
page; and we should all of us rest at ease with such objects 
as presented themselves in the parish or province where we 
first drew breath. 

"It is to this spur which is ever in our sides, that we 
owe the impatience of this desire for travelling : the passion 
is no way bad, — but as others are, — in its mismanagement 
or excess : — order it rightly, the advantages are worth the 
pursuit; — the chief of which are — to learn the languages, 
the laws and customs, and understand the government and 
interest of other nations, — to acquire an urbanity and con- 
fidence of behaviour, and fit the mind more easily for con- 
versation and discourse — to take us out of the company of 
our aunts and grandmothers, and from the track of nurs- 
ery mistakes ; and by showing us new objects, or old ones 
in new lights, to reform our judgments — by tasting 
perpetually the varieties of nature, to know what is good 
— and by observing the address and arts of man to conceive 
what is sincere, — and by seeing the difference of so many 

386 , 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

various humours and manners, — to look into ourselves 
and form our own. 

"This is some part of the cargo we might return with; 
but the impulse of seeing new sights, augmented with that 
of getting clear from all lessons of wisdom and reproof at 
home carries our youth too early out, to turn this venture 
to much account; on the contrary, if the scene painted of 
the prodigal in his travels, looks more like a copy than an 
original, — will it not be well if such an adventurer, with 
so unpromising a setting out, — without carte, — without 
compass, — be not cast away for ever, — and may not be 
said to escape well, — if he return to his country, only as 
naked as he left it? 

"But you send an able pilot with your son — a scholar. 
If wisdom can speak in no other language but Greek or 
Latin, — you do well — or if mathematics will make a man 
a gentleman, — or natural philosophy but teach him to 
make a bow, — he may be of some service in introducing 
your son into good societies, and supporting him in them 
when he has done, — but the upshot will be generally this, 
that in the most pressing occasions of address — if he is a 
mere man of reading, the unhappy youth will have the tutor 
to carry, — and not the tutor to carry him. 

"But you will avoid this extreme; he shall be escorted 
by one who knows the world, not merely from books — 
but from his own experience : — a man who has been em- 
ployed in such services, and thrice made the tour oj Europe, 
with success. 

"That is, without breaking his own or his pupil's neck; 
— for if he is such as my eyes have seen ! some broken 
Swiss valet de chamhre, — some general imdertaker, who 
will perform the jotimey in so many months, 'IF GOD 
PERMIT' — much knowledge will not accrue; — some 
profit at least, — he will learn the amount to a halfpenny, 
of every stage from Calais to Rome ; — he will be carried 
to the best inns, — instructed where is the best wine, and 
sup a livre cheaper, than if the youth had been left to 
make the tour and the bargain himself. — Look at our 

387 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

governor ! I beseech you : — see, he is an inch taller as 
he relates the advantages. — And here endeth his pride 
— his knowledge, and his use. 

"But when your son gets abroad, he will be taken out 
of his hand, by his society with men of rank and letters, 
with whom he will pass the greatest part of his time. 

"Let me observe, in the first place, — that company 
which is really good, is very rare, — and very shy; but 
you have surmounted this difficulty; and procured him 
the best letters of recommendation to the most eminent 
and respectable in every capital. 

"And I answer, that he will obtain all by them which 
courtesy strictly stands obliged to pay on such occasions, 
but no more. 

"There is nothing in which we are so much deceived, 
as in the advantages proposed from our connections and 
discourse with the literati, &c., in foreign parts; especially 
if the experiment is made before we are matured by years 
or study." 

With all his levity, Sterne was the keenest of observers, 
and, as we note, his comments present in substance the 
ordinary criticism, even of worldlings, on the fashionable 
Continental tour. 

Smollett is not the least prejudiced of critics, but his 
comments in 1765 upon the English in Italy are in ac- 
cord with much that is said by others. "They are sup- 
posed," remarks Smollett, "to have more money to 
throw away; and therefore a greater number of snares 
are layed for them. This opinion of their superior wealth 
they take a pride in confirming, by launching out into all 
manner of unnecessary expence, but what is still more 
dangerous, the moment they set foot in Italy they are 
seized with the ambition of becoming connoisseurs in 
painting, music, statuary, and architectm-e ; and the ad- 
venturers of this country do not fail to flatter this weak- 
ness for their own advantage. I have seen in different 
parts of Italy a number of raw boys, whom Britain seemed 
to have poured forth on purpose to bring her national 

388 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

character into contempt; ignorant, pettilant, rash, and 
profligate, without any knowledge or experience of their 
own, without any director to improve their understand- 
ing, or superintend their conduct. One engages in play 
with an infamous gamester, and is stripped perhaps 
in the very first partie; another is poxed and pillaged by 
an antiquated cantatrice ; a third is bubbled by a knavish 
antiquarian, and a fourth is laid under contribution by a 
dealer in pictures. Some turn fiddlers, and pretend to 
compose, but all of them talk familiarly of the arts, and 
return finished connoisseurs and coxcombs, to their own 
country. The most remarkable phenomenon of this 
kind, which I have seen, is a boy of seventy-two, now 
actually travelling through Italy, for improvement, under 
the auspices of another boy of twenty-two." ^ 

Another writer, whose humor is a trifle heavy, draws 
an elaborate parallel between "rambling abroad and 
running out of bounds," the offense in the one case 
being "committed by the great children, the other by 
the little ones"; and the question is raised whether the 
punishment shoiild not be similar; "if the discipline of 
birch is found effective to restrain it in the latter, why 
should not the experiment be tried at least with the 
former ? 

"It may possibly be objected, that our men-children 
are too big to be whipt like school-boys; but if the de- 
scription be just which I heard a gentleman at my father's 
give last holidays of our countrymen abroad, I leave 
you to judge whether they should or not. ' Strolling over 
Europe,' these were his words, 'and staring about with 
a strange mixture of raw admiration and rude contempt; 
both equally the effect of ignorance and inexperience. 
Insolently despising foreign manners and customs, merely 
because they are foreign, which yet for the same reason 
they would copy, though aukwardly and without dis- 
tinction. Untinctured with any sound principles of 
comparison; unreasonably vain, and, by turns, ashamed 
of their native country; trifling, sheepish and riotous.' 

389 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

What are these, Mr. Fitz-Adam, but school-boys out 
of bounds? 

"Suppose, then, that a bill was to be prepared, intituled, 
'An act against rambling,' which may be considered as 
a proper supplement to the vagrant act. . . . 'Proper 
officers . . . shall transmit annually complete lists of 
absentees in foreign parts, who on their return home, 
shall be liable to be summoned and examined in a sum- 
mary way before the board, whose sentence shall be 
final. That all going into foreign parts shall not be deemed 
rambling; but that the legislature may in its wisdom 
define the offence, and specify certain tokens by which 
it may be ascertained; such, for instance, as debasing 
the purity of the English language, by a vile mixture of 
exotic words, idioms, and phrases; all impertinent and 
unmeaning shrugs, grimaces, and gesticulations; the 
frequent use of the word canaille, and the least contempt 
wantonly cast on the roast beef of old England.' Offenders 
against this decree are to be flogged Hke schoolboys. 
'Provided always, that nothing in this act contained 
shall extend to persons who cross the seas to finish their 
studies at foreign universities; to gentlemen who travel 
with the public spirited design of procuring singers and 
dancers for the opera; or to such young patriots who 
make the tour of Europe, from a laudable desire of discov- 
ering the defects of the English constitution, by comparing 
it with the more perfect models which are to be found 
abroad.' ... 

"I once thought of a private whipping room for travel- 
ling females, but in consideration of the voluntary penance 
which I am told they submit to at their return to England, 
of exhibiting themselves in "public places, made fright- 
ful with all the frippery of France, patched, painted, and 
pomponed, as warnings to the sex, I am willing that all 
further punishment should be remitted." ^ 

The whole situation is admirably summed up in another 
paper in the "World" ^ describing the experiences of a 
young Englishman and his tutor on the Continent. Fiction 

390 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

as it is, it contains nothing that cannot be paralleled in 
hundreds of instances drawn from real life : — 

"To Mr. Fitz-Adam. 

"Sir, — I troubled you some time ago with an account 
of my distress arising from the female part of my family. 
I told you that by an unfortunate trip to Paris my wife 
and daughter had run stark French; and I wish I could 
tell you now that they were perfectly recovered. . . . 

"I acquainted you that in the education of my son, 
I had conformed to the common custom of this country, 
perhaps I conformed to it too much and too soon ; and that 
I carried him to Paris, from whence, after six months' 
stay, he was to go upon his travels, and take the usual 
tour of Italy and Germany. I thought it very necessary 
for a young man, though not for a young lady, to be well 
acquainted with the languages, the manners, the char- 
acters, and the constitutions of other countries; the want 
of which I experienced and lamented in myself. In order 
to enable him to keep good company, I allowed him more 
than I could conveniently afford; and I trusted him to 
the care of a Swiss governor, a gentleman of some learn- 
ing, good-sense, good-nature, and good-manners. But 
how cruelly I am disappointed in all these hopes, what 
follows will inform you. 

"During his stay at Paris, he only frequented the worst 
English company there, with whom he was unhappily 
engaged in two or three scrapes, which the credit and 
good-nature of the English ambassador helped him out of. 
He hired a low Irish wench, whom he drove about in a 
hired chaise, to the great honour of himself, his family, 
and his country. He did not leam one word of French, and 
never spoke to Frenchman or Frenchwoman, excepting 
some vulgar and injurious epithets, which he bestowed 
upon them in very plain English. His governor very 
honestly informed me of this conduct, which he tried in 
vain to reform, and advised their removal to Italy, which 
accordingly I immediately ordered. His behaviour there 

391 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

will appear in the truest light to you, by his own and his 
governor's last letters to me, of which I here give you 
faithful copies : — 

'"Sir, — In the six weeks that I passed at Florence, and 
the week I spent at Genoa, I never had time to write to 
you, being wholly taken up with seeing things of which 
the most remarkable is the steeple of Pisa : it is the oddest 
thing I ever saw in my life; it stands all awry; I wonder 
it does not tumble down. I met with a great many of my 
countrymen, and we Hve together very sociably. I have 
been here now a month, and will give you an account of 
my way of life. Here are a great many agreeable English 
gentlemen; we are about nine or ten as smart bucks as 
any in England. We constantly breakfast together, 
and then either go and see sights, or drive about the 
outlets of Rome in Chaises; but the horses are very bad, 
and the chaises do not follow well. We meet before 
dinner at the English coffee-house; where there is a very 
good bilHard-table and very good company. From thence 
we go and dine together by turns at each other's lodgings. 
Then after a cheerful glass of claret, for we have made 
a shift to get some here, we go to the coffee-house again; 
from thence to supper, and so to bed. I do not beheve 
these Romans are a bit like the old Romans; they are 
a parcel of thin-gutted, snivelHng, cringing dogs; and I 
verily believe that our set coiild thrash forty of them. 
We never go among them; it would not be worth while; 
besides, we none of us speak Italian and none of those 
signors speak English; which shows what sort of fellows 
they are. We saw the Pope go by 'tother day in a proces- 
sion, but we resolved to assert the honor of Old England; 
so we neither bowed nor pulled off our hats to the old rogue. 
Provisions and liquor are but bad here; and, to say the 
truth, I have not had one thorough good meal's meat 
since I left England. No longer ago than last Sunday we 
wanted to have a good plum-pudding; but we found 
the materials difficult to procure, and were obliged to 
get an English footman to make it. Pray, Sir, let me 

392 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

come home; for I cannot find that one is a jot the better 
for seeing all these outlandish places and people. But if 
you will not let me come back, for God's sake, Sir, take 
away the impertinent mounseer you sent with me. He 
is a considerable expense to you, and of no manner of 
service to me. All the English here laugh at him, he is 
such a prig. He thinks himself a fine gentleman, and 
is always plaguing me to go into foreign companies, to 
learn foreign languages, and to get foreign manners; 
as if I were not to live and die in Old England, and as 
if good English acquaintance would not be more usefiil 
to me than outlandish ones. Dear Sir, grant me this 
request, and you shall ever find me 

" 'Your most dutiful son, 
'"G. D. 
'"Rome, May the 3d, 1753.' 

"The following is a very honest and sensible letter, which 
I received at the same time from my son's governor: — 

'"Sir, — I think myself obliged in conscience to in- 
form you, that the money you are pleased to allow me 
for my attendance upon your son is absolutely thrown 
away; since I find, by melancholy experience, that I can 
be of no manner of use to him. I have tried all possible 
methods to prevail with him to answer, in some degree 
at least, your good intentions in sending him abroad; 
but all in vain; and, in return for all my endeavours, I 
am either laughed at or insulted. Sometimes I am called 
a beggarly French dog, and bid to go back to my own 
country and eat my frogs; and sometimes I am moun- 
seer Ragout, and told that I think myself a very fine 
gentleman. I daily represent to him that, by sending him 
abroad, you meant that he should learn the languages, 
the manners, and characters of different countries, and 
that he should add to the classical education which you 
have given him at home, a knowledge of the world, and 
the genteel easy manners of a man of fashion, which can 
only be acqidred by frequenting the best companies 

393 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

abroad. To which he only answers me with a sneer of 
contempt, and says, "so be-Hke-ye, ha!" I would have 
connived at the common vices of youth, if they had been 
attended with the least degree of decency or refinement; 
but I must not conceal from you that your son's are of 
the lowest and most degrading kind, and avowed in the 
most public and indecent manner. I have never been 
able to persuade him to deliver the letters of recom- 
mendation which you procured him; he says he does 
not desire to keep such company. I advised him to take 
an Italian master, which he flatly refused, saying that 
he should have time enough to learn Italian when he went 
back to England. But he has taken, of himself, a master 
to teach him to play upon the German flute, upon which 
he throws away two or three hours every day. We spend 
a great deal of money, without doing you or ourselves 
any honour by it; though yoiu: son, like the generality of 
his countrymen, values himself upon his expense, and 
looks upon all foreigners who are not able to make so 
considerable a one, as a parcel of beggars and scoundrels; 
speaks of them, and if he spoke to them, would treat them, 
as such. 

" 'If I might presume to advise you. Sir, it would be 
to order us home forthwith. I can assure you that your 
son's morals and manners will be in much less danger 
under your own inspection at home, than they can be 
under mine abroad; and I defy him to keep worse English 
company in England than he now keeps here. But what- 
ever you may think fit to determine concerning him, I 
must humbly insist upon my own dismission, and upon 
leave to assure you in person of the respect with which 
I have the honor to be, 

" 'Sir, yours, &c. 

'"Rome, May the 3d, I753-' 

"I have complied with my son's request in consequence 
of his governor's advice; and have ordered him to come 
home immediately. But what shall I do with him here, 

394 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

where he is but too likely to be encouraged and coun- 
tenanced in these illiberal and ungentleman-like man- 
ners? My case is surely most singularly unfortunate; 
to be plagued on one side by the polite and elegant for- 
eign follies of my wife and daughter, and on the other 
by the unconforming obstinacy, the low vulgar excesses, 
and the porter-like manners of my son. . . . 

"Your most humble servant and constant reader, 

"R. D." 

Three years later another satirical paper in the "World" ^ 
remarks upon "the necessity of travel from the age of 
seventeen to twenty-one" as something that has "long 
been notorious to all the world. . . . Who is not aware 
that, abroad, national prejudices are destroyed, the 
mind is opened, the taste refined, the person improved? 
And, what must be a further consolation to parents, is, 
that the habits and manners contracted by young gentlemen 
in their travels are likely to remain with them all their 
lives after." 

Then, continues the writer, considering the popularity 
of Chinese ornaments and architecture, "I was led to 
consider whether to send our sons to Pekin instead of 
Paris, would not better answer all purposes of travel. 
Surely a mettled fellow could not hesitate between this 
route and the old beaten one of France and Italy; where, 
from a Calais landlord to a Neapolitan princess, there is 
a sameness of adventure that is become extremely irk- 
some to a polite circle in the recital. A traveller will be 
greatly disappointed who fancies the tour of Europe will 
entitle to him attention at Arthiir's or an assembly. 
Alas! after four years of expense, danger, and fatigue, if 
he expects auditors, he must have recourse to his tenants 
in the country, or seek them about four o'clock on a bench 
in St. James's park." 

One evil in particular was that often immature young 
fellows were, against their will, sent abroad by their 
parents, "on the principle on which they suppose that 

395 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

knowledge is the certain consequence of a college education. 
All men," urges the objector, "are not bom for all things; 
the lessons to be learned by travelling are among the 
most diffictdt that can be offered to the human intellect, 
and can only enter into a capacity to which Nature has 
been originally kind, and which culture has duly pre- 
pared. ... To send a young man to travel for improve- 
ment, whom Nature has gifted with no turn for obser- 
vation, or power of deduction, is to set up a mechanical 
process in opposition to Nature's laws. ... It is con- 
demning him to compulsory idleness, without any re- 
sources but such as are to be found in the frivolities of 
fashion, the sallies of folly, or the excesses of debauch. ..." 
The writer admits that when one is properly prepared, 
"a plan of education would be very imperfect that did 
not include the advantages of foreign travel. To a youth 
so qualified, it is fruitful in the most important lessons of 
life." ' 

That, however, the average tourist had little to show for 
his trouble was the settled conviction of Dr. Johnson. Very 
characteristically he says in the "Idler": ^ "The greater 
part of travellers tell nothing, because their method of 
travelling supplies them with nothing to be told. He that 
enters a town at night and surveys it in the morning, and 
then hastens away to another place, and guesses at the 
manners of the inhabitants by the entertainment which his 
inn afforded him, may please himself for a time with a 
hasty change of scenes, and a confused remembrance of 
palaces and churches; he may gratify his eye with variety 
of landscapes, and regale his palate with a succession of 
vintages : but let him be contented to please himself with- 
out endeavouring to disturb others. Why should he record 
excursions by which nothing could be learned, or wish to 
make a show of knowledge, which, without some power of 
intuition unknown to other mortals, he could never attain." ^ 

Another writer * objected to the grand tour, since it too 
often unfitted a young man for a contented and useful life 
by giving him "a relish for foreign manners, and a taste for 

396 



A MACARONI 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

the society of a set of men, with whom neither his station 
nor his fortune entitle him to associate in the after-part of 
his Hfe." 

One while abroad might study antiquities, music, and 
painting, and on returning to his early friends find himself 
"disgusted with the blunt plainness of their manners," and 
with their conversation, dwelling on politics, farming, fox- 
hunting, and debauchery. They could make nothing of 
the topics he might suggest, for there was no common 
ground. The writer concludes "that it is a misfortune for 
a private gentleman, who means to pass his days in his 
native country, to become attached to foreign manners and 
foreign customs, in so considerable a degree, as a long 
residence abroad, in the earlier period of life, seldom fails 
to produce."^ 

In adopting foreign fashions of dress and affected pronun- 
ciations of English words. Englishmen, as already noted, 
often went to the most extravagant lengths and made them- 
selves the laughing-stock of all sensible people. Young ex- 
quisites who had traveled in Italy, and who, as Walpole 
says,^ wore "long curls and spying-glasses, " founded the 
Macaroni Club, to which no one could be admitted who 
had not traveled abroad. This club drew in the most repre- 
sentative of the younger men of rank and fashion that used 
to gather at Brookes's, and they speedily attracted atten- 
tion by their absurd style of dress and exaggerated foreign 
manners.' Charles James Fox "led the fashion among the 
' macaronis.' After his visit to Italy he and his cousin posted 
from Paris to Lyons simply in order to choose patterns for 
their waistcoats ; he appeared in London in red-heeled shoes 
and blue hair-powder, and up to the age of twenty-five, 
sometimes at least, wore a hat and feather in the House 
of Commons." * 

Follies of this sort naturally invited satire. A writer in 
the "Oxford Magazine" for June, 1770,^ says: "There is 
indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of 
the neuter gender, lately started up amongst us. It is called 
a Macaroni. It talks without meaning, it smiles without 

397 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

pleasantry, it eats without appetite, it rides without exer- 
cise, it wenches without passion." 

As serious as the sternest of these critics of the grand 
tour, though adopting a bantering tone, Cowper follows, in 
"The Progress of Error," the wanderings of a youth who 
deserves a place in the "Dunciad": — 

"From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home, 
And thence with all convenient speed to Rome, 
With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay. 
To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day; 
With memorandum book for every town 
And every post, and where the chaise broke down, 
His stock a few French phrases got by heart, 
With much to learn and nothing to impart; 
The youth, obedient to his sire's commands, 
Sets oflf a wanderer into foreign lands. 
Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair. 
With awkward gait, stretch'd neck, and sUly stare, 
Discover huge cathedrals built with stone. 
And steeples towering high, much lilce our own; 
But show peculiar light with many a grin 
At popish practices observed within. 
Ere long some bowing, smirking, smart abb6 
Remarks two foreigners that have lost their way; 
And, being always primed with politesse 
For men of their appearance and address. 
With much compassion undertakes the task 
To tell them more than they have wit to ask; 
Points to inscriptions whereso'er they tread, 
Such as, when legible, were never read. 
But being cankr'd now and half worn out, 
Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt; 
Some headless hero, or some Caesar shows — 
Defective only in his Roman nose; 
Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans. 
Models of Herculaneum pots and pans; 
And sells them medals, which, if neither rare 
Nor ancient, will be so, preserved with care. 

" Strange the recital, from whatever cause 
His great improvement and new lights he draws. 
The squire, once bashful, is shamefaced no more. 
But teems with powers he never felt before; 
Whether increased momentum, and the force 
With which from clime to clime he sped his course, 
(As axles sometimes kindle as they go,) 
Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a, glow; 
Or whether clearer skies and softer air. 
That makes Italian flowers so sweet and fair, 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran, 
Unfolded genially, and spread the man; 
Returning, he proclaims by many a grace. 
By shrugs and strange contortions of his face, 
How much a dunce that has been set to roam, 
Excels a dunce that has been kept at home." 

Beside this list of shortcomings charged against the 
grand tour we may place the dialogue in "The Twa Dogs" 
of Burns, which with genial irony traces the career of a 
young rake from The Hague or Calais to Madrid or Vienna, 
and with a sudden turn of Scotch seriousness stamps the 
whole with severe disapproval : — 

C^SAR 

"Haith, lad, ye little ken about it: 
For Britain's guid! guid faith! I doubt it. 
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him: 
An' saying aye or no 's they bid him: 
At operas an' plays parading. 
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading: 
Or maybe, in a frolic daft. 
To Hague or Calais takes a waft; 
To mak a tour an' tak a whirl, 
To learn bon ton, an' see the worl'. 
There, at Vienna or Versailles, 
He rives his father's auld entails; 
Or by Madrid he takes the rout, 
To thrum guitars an' fecht wi' nowt; 
Or down Italian vista startles, 
Wh — re-hunting amang groves o' myrtles: 
Then bowses drumlie German-water, 
To mak himsel look fair an' fatter. 
An' clear the consequential sorrows, 
Love-gifts of Carnival signoras. 
For Britain's guid! for her destruction, 
Wi' dissipation, feud an' faction. 



' Hech man ! dear sirs ! is that the gate 
They waste sae mony a braw estate! 
Are we sae foughten an' harassed 
For gear to gang that gate at last? 
O would they stay aback frae courts, 
An' please themsels wi' countra sports 
It wad for ev'ry ane be better. 
The laird, the tenant, an' the cotter." 

399 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

Obviously, some of the raw, half-bred lads who trav- 
eled would have been better off at home, under the eye of 
their parents. The lazy, dawdling life they led abroad, with 
responsibility for nothing and with no desire to improve 
the opportunities offered them, can have been of small 
advantage to either mind or character. Yet the idle and 
vicious life of too many rich young Englishmen when at 
home hardly warrants us in assuming that they, at all 
events, suffered much deterioration by making the grand 
tour. They were likely while abroad to ape foreign airs 
and to come home tricked out in ostentatious finery, but 
in so doing they merely exhibited one form of youthful 
silliness. 

The advantage of living abroad under favorable condi- 
tions is forcibly stated by Horace Walpole in a letter to 
Sir Horace Mann in 1760: "I have had much conversation 
with your brother James, and intend to have more with 
your eldest, about your nephew. . . . They have sent 
him to Cambridge under that interested hog the Bishop of 
Chester, and propose to keep him there three years. Their 
apprehension seems to be of his growing a fine gentleman. 
I could not help saying, 'Why, is he not to be one?' My 
wish is to have him with you — what an opportunity of 
his learning the world and business under such a tutor and 
such a parent! Oh! but they think he will dress and run 
into diversions. I tried to convince them that of all 
spots upon earth dress is least necessary at Florence, and 
where one can least divert oneself. I am answered with 
the necessity of Latin and mathematics — the one soon 
forgot, the other never got to any purpose. I cannot 
bear his losing the advantage of being brought up by you, 
with all the advantages of such a situation, and where he 
niay learn in perfection living languages, never attained 
after twenty." ^ 

On the ordinary effect of the foreign tour few travelers 
were on the whole more competent to speak with authority 
than De Brosses and Dr. John Moore. Says De Brosses: 
"The money that the English spend at Rome and the prac- 

400 



THE COLISEUM 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

tice of making a journey there, which forms a part of their 
education, do not profit much the majority of them. There 
are some of them who are persons of intelHgence and en- 
deavor to instruct themselves; but they form no great 
number. The majority have a hired carriage harnessed in 
the Piazza di Spagna that is at their service throughout 
the day until they go together to play billiards, or to some 
other similar amusement. I see some of them who will 
leave Rome without having seen any but English people 
and without knowing where the Coliseum is." * 

Dr. Moore gave much attention to the question of the 
value of the foreign tour. In his account of France he takes 
up education at Geneva, and in his book on Italy he esti- 
mates the worth of the grand tour as a whole: — "In obe- 
dience to your request, I shall give you my opinion freely 

with regard to Lord 's scheme of sending his two sons 

to be educated at Geneva. 

"The eldest, if I remember right, is not more than nine 
years of age; and they have advanced no farther in their 
education than being able to read English tolerably well. 
His Lordship's idea is that when they shall have acquired 
a perfect knowledge of the French language they may be 
taught Latin through the medium of that language, and 
pursue any other study that may be thought proper. 

"I have attended to his Lordship's objections against the 
public schools in England, and after due consideration and 
weighing every circumstance, I remain of opinion, that no 
country but Great Britain is proper for the education of a 
British subject, who proposes to pass his life in his own 
country. The most important point, in my mind, to be se- 
cured in the education of a young man of rank of our coun- 
try, is to make him an EngHshman; and this can be done 
no where so effectually as in England. , . . 

"It is thought that by an early foreign education all 
ridiculous English prejudices will be avoided. This may be 
true; — but other prejudices, perhaps as ridiculous, and 
much more detrimental, will be formed. The first cannot be 
attended with many inconveniences; the second may ren- 

401 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

der the young people unhappy in their own country when 
they return, and disagreeable to their countrymen all the 
rest of their lives. It is true, that the French manners are 
adopted in almost every country of Europe: they prevail 
all over Germany and the northern courts. They are 
gaining ground, though with a slower pace, in Spain, and 
in the Italian states. — This is not the case in England. — 
The English manners are universal in the provinces, pre- 
vail in the capital, and are to be found uncontaminated 
even at court. . . . 

"Besides, a prejudice against French manners is not 
confined to the lower ranks in England : It is diffused over 
the whole nation. Even those who have none of the usual 
prejudices — who do all manner of justice to the talents 
and ingenuity of their neighbours — who approve of 
French manners in French people; yet cannot suffer them 
when grafted on their countrymen. Should an English 
gentleman think this kind of grafting at all admissible, it 
will be in some of the lowest classes with whom he is con- 
nected, as his tailor, barber, valet-de-chambre, or cook; 
but never in his friend. 

"I can scarcely remember an instance of an Englishman 
of fashion, who has evinced in his dress or stile of living a 
preference to French manners, who did not lose by it in 
the opinion of his countrymen. 

"What I have said of French manners is applicable to 
foreign manners in general, which are all in some degree 
French, and the particular differences are not distinguished 
by the English. . . . 

"An English boy, sent to Geneva at an early period of 
life and remaining there six or seven years, if his parents 
be not along with him, will probably, in the eyes of the 
English, appear a kind of Frenchman all his life after. This 
is an inconvenience which ought to be avoided with the 
greatest attention." ^ 

"If, however," he adds, "the opinions of relations or any 
peculiarity in situation, prevents his being educated at 
home, Geneva should be preferred to any other place." ^ 

402 



ti 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

On the wider question of the value of the grand tour as 
a whole Dr. Moore observes : — 

"I cannot help thinking that a young man of fortune may 
spend a few years to advantage in travelling through some 
of the principal countries of Europe, provided the tour be 
well-timed and well-conducted; and without these, what 
part of education can be of use? . . . 

"A youth should get his elementary education at the 
public schools, rather than at home or abroad, and should 
then go to the university. 

"But whatever plan is adopted, whether the young man 
studies at the university, or at home with private teachers, 
while he is studying with diligence and alacrity, it would be 
doing him a most essential injury to interrupt him by a pre- 
mature expedition to the Continent, from an idea of his ac- 
quiring the graces, elegance of manner, or any of the ac- 
complishments which travelling is supposed to give. . . . 

"According to this plan, a youth, properly educated, 
will seldom begin his foreign tour before the age of twenty ; 
if it is a year or two later, there will be no harm.^ . . . 

"It may also be said, if the tour is deferred till the age 
of twenty, the youth will not, after that period, attain the 
modem languages in perfection," or "easy manner and 
fine address." 

Dr. Moore is not convinced that one can learn these 
things at all, unless they come naturally: — 

"To retain betimes that ease and elegance of manner 
which travelling is supposed to bestow, and that the young 
gentleman may become perfectly master of the modern 
languages, some have thought of mixing the two plans, and 
instead of allowing him to prosecute his studies at home, 
sending him abroad immediately on his coming from school, 
on the supposition that, with the assistance of a tutor and 
foreign prof essors, he will proceed in the study of philosophy, 
and other branches of literature during the three or four 
years which are employed in the usual tour. It will not be 
denied, that a young man who has made good use of his 
time at school and at the university, who has acquired such 

403 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

a taste for science as to consider its pursuit as a pleasure, 
and not as a task, may, even during his travels mix the 
study of man with that of books, and continue to make 
progress in the latter, when the greater part of his time is 
dedicated to the former. But that such a taste will, for 
the first time, spring up in the breast of a boy of sixteen or 
seventeen, amidst the dissipation of theatres, reviews, pro- 
cessions, balls, and assemblies, is of all things the least 
probable. 

"After a young man has employed his time to advantage 
at a public school, and has continued his application to 
various branches of science till the age of twenty, you ask, 
what are the advantages he is likely to reap from a tour 
abroad?" 

Moore points out that the tourist "will see mankind 
more at large. ... By comparing the various customs and 
usages, and hearing the received opinions of different coun- 
tries, his mind will be enlarged. 

"As for his manner, though it will not be so janty as if 
he had been bred in France from his earliest youth, yet 
that also will in some degree be improved. 

"However persuaded he may be of the advantages en- 
joyed by the people of England, he will see the harshness 
and impropriety of insulting the natives of other countries 
with an ostentatious enumeration of those advantages; he 
will perceive how odious those travellers make themselves 
who laugh at the religion, ridicule the customs, and insult 
the police of the countries through which they pass, and 
who never fail to insinuate to the inhabitants that they are 
all slaves and bigots. Such bold Britons we have sometimes 
met with, fighting their way through Europe, etc. . . . 

"Besides these advantages, a young man of fortune, by 
spending a few years abroad, will gratify a natural and 
laudable ciuiosity, and pass a certain portion of his time in 
an agreeable manner. He will form an acquaintance with 
that boasted nation whose superior taste and politeness are 
universally acknowledged ; whose fashions and language are 
adopted by all Europe; and who, in science, power, and 

404 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

commerce are the rivals of Great Britain. He will have 
opportunities of observing the political constitution of the 
German empire, that complex body, formed by a confed- 
eracy of princes, ecclesiastics, and free cities, comprehend- 
ing countries of vast extent, inhabited by a hardy race of 
men, distinguished for solid sense and integrity. . . . 

"Viewing the remains of Roman taste and magnificence, 
he will feel a thousand emotions of the most interesting 
nature," ^ and so on. 

A professional educator like Vicesimus Knox substantially 
agrees with De Brosses and Dr. Moore. Like Locke and 
Andrews and Sherlock, he especially reprobates "the 
practice of very early travel. A great degree of mental 
maturity and of acquired knowledge, is necessary to 
enable the mind to derive advantage and avoid inconven- 
ience, from visiting a foreign nation. To expect that boys 
should make observ^ations on men and manners, should 
weigh and compare the laws, institutions, customs, and 
characteristics of various people, is to expect an impossi- 
bility. It is no less absurd to suppose, that boys will not be 
struck and captivated with vanity and trifles. I therefore 
advise, that a pupil shall not be sent to travel till he has 
passed through a capital school, and arrived at the age of 
nineteen. Indeed I wish that he might spend four years at 
the university, when it shall be reformed; but I know this 
requisition will not often be complied with." 2 

And a few pages later he adds: "I could indeed almost 
wish that travel were not considered as a necessary part 
of juvenile education. I wish not that travel should be 
prohibited; but I would have its advantages sought by 
men at a mature age, after they are settled." ^ 

In view of all this criticism and comment we realize how 
serious a problem the conventional grand tour presented to 
educators and to parents. Whereas the Continental jour- 
ney was in theory an ideal means of education, in practice 
it often brought disaster, when all sorts of young men were 
sent abroad regardless of their tastes, their abiHties, or 
their morals. Many young tourists did little when abroad 

405 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

that they might not have done at home, except that they 
viewed a few ruins and became acquainted with the exter- 
nals of life in another country. In many cases they even 
appear to have taken their tour abroad as a sort of penance 
imposed by social conventions, and they had no intention 
of adding to their burdens by giving inordinate attention 
to serious things. 

It is not surprising that the unique educational oppor- 
tunities presented by France, Italy, and other countries 
somewhat palled upon young men, little more than boys, 
who had no very ardent zeal for learning, and who in their 
exile longed for their horses and their dogs and their fox- 
hunting. Says Sharp, "I have not seen one of our young 
gentlemen on his travels who does not appear more eager 
than I am to return to his friends and country. I had always 
figured to myself that they were in the highest delight when 
making the Grand Tour; but I find by experience, that 
when they are here, they consider it as a kind of appren- 
ticeship for qualifying a gentleman, and would often return 
abruptly, did they not feel themselves ashamed to indulge 
the inclination : Indeed, were it not that in the great cities 
they meet with numbers of their countrymen, the hours 
would lie too heavily on their hands ; for few men can spend 
their whole life in the pursuit of virtu, and some have not the 
qualifications of birth to recommend them to persons of 
high rank, where only is to be found what little society 
there is in Italy." ^ 

"Those," says Berchtold, "who are naturally destitute 
of judgment and prudence, become still greater fools by 
their travelling than they were before ; it being impossible 
for him, who is a fool in his own country, to become wise 
by running up and down; which made Socrates say, he must 
change his soul, and not the climate, to become wise." ^ 

Too many toiuists, as we have observed, threw off all 
control and shaped their conduct with no other thought 
than to find amusement. They spent their money as they 
spent their time — foolishly. To the credit of Englishmen, 
however, sober-minded tourists, at least among those who 

406 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

had come to maturity, appear to have been the rule rather 
than the exception, though some caustic critics reduce 
almost to the vanishing point the proportion of the sober- 
minded to the frivolous. The possibilities of good as well 
as of evil were almost incalculable, and men largely judged 
the question according to their personal experience or their 
personal observation of the effect upon young men of their 
acquaintance. No accumulation of opinions on either side 
is entirely convincing, as a basis for a sweeping conclusion. 
Probably we may safely assume that the intelligent, open- 
minded tourist of clean morals could hardly, in most cases, 
spend his time and money to greater profit. On the other 
hand, the lazy, dissipated scapegrace who drank and gam- 
bled his way through Europe commonly added foreign 
vices to those he brought from home, and on the Continent 
formed habits that completed his ruin. That he often took 
on a superficial polish of manner was small compensation 
for his loss:of everything that makes a man count for some- 
thing in the community where he lives. 

But the significance of a great movement is seldom fully 
realized in its own time, for facts are not yet seen in all 
their bearings. Can even we grasp the full meaning of this 
continual passing to and fro between England and the Con- 
tinent, this interchange of ideas, this growing familiarity 
with Continental ideals, with ItaUan art and French taste ? 
Perhaps not. But, in any event, it meant that England 
was constantly adding new and vital elements to her own 
civiHzation as well as diffusing EngHsh standards outside 
her own borders. 

The grand tour, however harmful it may have been in 
individual cases, shaped the ideals and character of a multi- 
tude of the most influential of the citizens of England. A 
young lord may have caroused through Europe, caring 
less for a great cathedral than for a cockpit at Shoreditch, 
but the mere fact that as a leader of society and of fashion 
he had made the long round of travel was enough to make it 
seem worthy of imitation. Even the rakes brought back to 
England a knowledge, however superficial, of great coun- 

407 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

tries beyond the sea, and of many things surpassing any- 
thing of their kind in England. Lazy profligates were 
doubtless far too common among English tourists, but a 
good proportion of the Englishmen on the Continent aimed 
to learn as much as possible while abroad, and they made 
a good impression even upon men of censorious temper. 
Smollett, as we have seen, judged his countrymen unfavor- 
ably. Sharp, on the other hand, is their defender: "There 
are many English at Rome, most of them gentlemen of for- 
tune, and most of them men who do honour to their coun- 
try. I know it is a received opinion in England that otu* 
youth, who travel, fall immediately into dissipation, and 
disgrace their country; but I have seen no such examples 
in Italy ; perhaps the case is singular, and any other year I 
might have formed a different judgment ; but I speak from 
what I know, and were I to give an opinion upon that dis- 
putable question. The advantages and disadvantages of 
travelling, I should not hesitate to declare, that the benefits 
are ntunerous, and that I see no other evil in it than what 
arises to the nation from the sums expended in foreign 
parts." 1 

The effect of long contact with other lands can hardly be 
measiu-ed, but beyond question it played no insignificant 
part in shaping the course of English life and thought in 
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Englishmen 
gradually lost some of their insularity and took that wider 
view of the world which so characterizes them to-day. 
Some of the most marked features of Continental life they 
rejected as out of harmony with the English temperament 
and historical evolution. But the residual was sufficient 
to influence very deeply English habits and to make a last- 
ing impression upon English life. 

However superficially a young fellow traveled, he had 
had an experience never to be forgotten, the most meager 
account of which would be listened to with open-eyed 
wonder and incredulity by his stay-at-home neighbors. 
Nor should we underestimate the value of what Englishmen 
gave to the Continent as well as what they received. Upon 

408 



COMMENT ON THE GRAND TOUR 

at least three countries, France, Germany, and Italy, the 
influence of England was deep and lasting. The further 
influence of the grand tour upon the expansion of English 
commerce, upon English colonial policy, upon English 
literature, and upon the entire EngHsh attitude toward the 
rest of the world opens questions extremely suggestive but 
too broad to be treated here. 



THE END 



409 



NOTES 

CHAPTER I 

PACK 

1. I. Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century, p. 71. Cf. also 

Gardner, Dukes and Poets of Ferrara, p. 413. 

2. I. J. W. Stubbs, History of the University of Dublin (1889), p. 354. 

2. S. Lee, The French Renaissance in England, pp. 42, 43. 

3. The first instance of the use of the term recorded in the Oxford 
Dictionary is for the year 1670. 

4. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, Preface, p. xi. 



CHAPTER II 

6. I. See Chapters X-XIV for details. 

10. I. In the middle of the century, Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 8, esti- 

mates the population of France at 20,000,000. For 1789, Levas- 
seur estimates the population at 26,000,000. The census of 
1801 makes it 26,930,756. 
2. " L'ancienne France 6tait si h6riss(5e d'exceptions, de privileges, 
de contrastes, que les assertions absolues . . . appellent k 
chaque instant des explications, des attenuations ou des cor- 
rectifs, suivant les circonstances de temps et de lieux." Cardinal 
Mathieu, VAncien Regime en Lorraine et Barrois, p. xui. 

11. I. The place that the king held in the everyday thought of the 

people is well illustrated in the following contemporary com- 
ment: "The most inconsiderable circumstance which relates to 
the monarch is of importance: Whether he eat much or little at 
dinner; the coat he wears, the horse on which he rides, all afford 
matter of conversation in the various societies of Paris, and 
are the most agreeable subjects of epistolary correspondence 
with their friends in the provinces." Moore, View of Society 
and Manners in France, etc., p. 20. 
2. "Everything in this kingdom is arranged for the accommoda- 
tion of the rich and the powerful . . . little or no regard is paid 
to the comfort of citizens of an inferior station." Moore, View 
of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 16. 

12. I. Taine, The Ancient Regime, I, 17. 
2. Ibid., I, 14. 

13. I. "It is the taste in France, for all that can possibly aflFord it 

(and of course for many that cannot) to live in the capital. 
This is a most devoted friend to luxury, which necessarily 
begets poverty — and then dependence — it is therefore en- 
couraged by the court." Letters concerning the Present State 
of the French Nation (1769), p. 145. 

4H 



NOTES 

PAGE 

13. 2. They were not subject to the taille, and although they paid the 

capitation tax, this was comparatively unimportant, and very 
unequally imposed. 

3, Cf. Taine, The Ancient Regime, I, 25. 

4. The Old Regime, p. 246. 

14. I. Cf. De Tocqueville, The Old Regime, p. 155. 

16. I. GaUenga, History of Piedmont, i, 208. 

17. I. Baretti, Manners and Customs of Italy, 11, 156, The population 

of Italy (1750-89), according to other estimates, ranged some- 
where between this figure and seventeen and a half millions. 

18. I. Wyndham, Travels through Europe, i, 35. 

19. I. Trevelyan, Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic, p. 103. 

2. Yet even after Leopold's many reforms, parts of Tuscany were 
in a wretched state, with squalid villages and impassable roads. 
Cf. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimenlo Italiano, i, 267. 

3. Ibid., I, 298. 

20. I. "A debased aristocracy, a people of beggars, behold the result 

of the ecclesiastical government." Ibid., i, 295. 

2. A Short Account of a Late Journey to Tuscany, Rome, etc., p. 16. 

3. Ibid., p. iii. 

4. Ibid., p. iv. 

21. I. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, p. 38. 

23. 1. Morse Stephens, Europe, 1789-1815, pp. 5, 6. 

24. I. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, p. 339. 

CHAPTER III 

29. I. The Gentleman's Guide in his Tour through France (1770), 

pp. 14 ff. 

2. Ibid., p. 14. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 338. 

4. Ibid., I, 326. 

30. I. "The Ship inn upon the quay at Dover is the best and most 

reasonable house." The Gentleman's Guide, p. 15. 

2. Travels through France and Italy, 1, 3, 4. 

3. These were, at all events, the ordinary days in the middle of 
the eighteenth century. 

4. De la Force, Nouvelle Description de la France, i, 341. 

5. Fitzgerald, Life of Sterne, p. 329. 

6. Bates, Touring in 1600, p. 63. 

7. Crudities, i, 152. 

8. Journal of Major Richard Terrier (1687), p. 17; Wright, Some 
Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc. 
(1719-20), I, I. 

9. H. St. John writes from Paris to Selwyn, December 22, 1770, 
"I arrived here at five o'clock in the morning, last Sunday; 
had a fine passage of less than three hours." Jesse, George 
Selwyn and his Contemporaries, iii, 3. 

ID. Letters from Italy, p. 10. 

31. I. Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Bumey. 

412 



NOTES 

PAGE 

31. 2. Journal of a Tour, etc., p. 3. 

3. Travels inFrance, p. 150. 

4. Notes on a Journey through France, p. 114. 

5. Journal of Major Richard Ferrier, p. 17. 

6. Smollett, Travels, i, 11, 12. It was notorious that one often 
paid as much for being rowed ashore as for the whole passage. 
See The Gentleman's Guide, p. 16. 

7. The Stranger in France, p. 21. 

8. In (Jones) Journey to Paris, 1, 8. 

32. I. Thierry, Almanach du Voyageur, p. 107. 

2. Travels through France, in Harris's Collection of Voyages and 
Travels, 11, 734. 

3. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 47. 

4. There were a half-score or more of canals in France before the 
Revolution, but the combined length of those open to com- 
merce at the end of the eighteenth century was only about a 
thousand kilometers. Say, Dictionnaire des Finances. 

5. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 145. 

33. I. Travels, i, 146. 

2. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 144. 

3. Travels, 11, 3. 

4. Ibid., II, 5, 6. Smith (Tour on the Continent, i, 215) went by 
felucca along the coast "on account of the badness of the roads 
and the danger of banditti" (p. 473). 

5. Travels, 11, 33. 

34- I. About $2.25. 

2. Travels through Italy, p. 457. 

3. Ibid., p. 473. 

4. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., i, 18. 

5. Nugent very significantly says: "When the passage by land 
is easy, a curious traveller will never choose to go by sea." 
Grand Tour, iii, 41. 

6. Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, 377, 378. 

7. See Chapter VIII. 

8. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, vii, 439. 

35- I- Ray, Travels through the State of Venice, etc., in Harris's Collec- 

tion of Voyages and Travels, 11, 683. 

2. Tour on the Continent, 11, 374, 380. 

3. Letters from Italy, 11, 195. 

4. Burnet, Travels, p. 105. 

36. I. Cf. for example, Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe 
I, 206, 207. 

2. Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, i, 161. To Smith the banks 
suggest Holland. Tour on the Continent, ni, 2. 

3. Keysler, Travels, iv, i. In Coryate's time the trip from Padua 
through the Brenta to Venice and return, a journey of fifty 
miles in all, required about twenty-four hours. Crudities, i, 300. 

4. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France 
Italy, etc., i, 43. ' 

5. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 6. 

413 



NOTES 

PAGE 

37. I. Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 211, 212. 

2. Wright illustrates the ingenious device (still often found in 
Germany) used in crossing the Po near Borgo Forte. At a point 
in the middle of the stream a strong chain or cable was fastened, 
the other end being attached to the ferry-boat, which by the 
force of the current was swung from one bank to the other at 
the pleasure of the steersman. See Some Observations made in 
Travelling through France, Italy, etc., i, 33, 34. 

3. Bromley, Several Years' Travels, p. 205; Starke, Letters from 
Italy, 11, 363. 

4. Lettres sur Vltalie, I, 312. 

5. Between Cologne and Amsterdam "there are no less than twelve 
of those oppressors." Cogan, The Rhine, i, 308. 

38. I. Crudities, 11, 307. 

2. Cogan, The Rhine, I, 1 1. 

3. Ihid., I, 308. 

4. "In the great boats, which are drawn by horses, the common 
rate (from Cologne to Mainz) is a crown a-piece, a little over 
or under; and if the passengers please, they may land at any 
town by the way, to dine or sup." Misson, New Voyage to 
Italy, I^ 495. 

5. Cogan, The Rhine, 11, 275. 

39. I. Tour through Germany, p. 195. 

2. Letters, i, 206. 

3. Letters from Italy, 11, 249, 250. 

4. Ibid., II, 254. 

40. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, I, 315. These directions fill the last fifty- 

eight pages of volume i. Compare also the following: "Direc- 
tions to know at what time the post-waggons, coaches, draw- 
boats, sailing-boats, and market-boats set out from aU the 
principal towns of the Low Countries, especially of the United 
Provinces, to the following towns and places; according to the 
alphabetical order." Ibid., i, 334-67. 
2. Ibid., I, 48, 49. 

41. I. ThesameisnotedinBromley's5CTem/Fear5'rrc:'e/5(i702),p.28o. 

2. A Description of Holland, pp. 349-50, note. 

3. In Misson's time the journey by canal from Brussels to Ant- 
werp required seven hours; from Bruges to Ostend, three hours. 
See New Voyage to Italy, 11*, 531, 550. 

4. Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 6. 

5. New Voyage to Italy, i*, 3. 

42. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, 1, 279. 

2. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i', 582. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 202. 

CHAPTER IV 

43. I. On the relative excellence of ancient and modem roads, see 

Friedlander, Roman Life and Manners, i, 275. 
2. For the routes of the Roman roads, see ibid., p. 272. On the 
lack of roads, see p. 277. 

414 



NOTES 

PAGE 

43. 3. History of England, 1, 279-91. 

4. See Crabb Robinson's Diary, i, 411. 

44. I. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, pp. 261, 278. 

2. Cf. Thierry, Almanack du Voyageur, p. 385. 

3. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 52. 

4. Ibid., p. 127. 

5. Ibid., p. 60. 

6. Ibid., p. 12. 

7. Travels in Italy, p. 6. 

8. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, li, 41. 

45. I. Carr, The Stranger in France, p. 269. 

2. "The way from Paris to this city [Orleans], as indeed most of 
the roads in France, is paved with a small square-face stone, 
so that the country does not much molest the traveller with 
dirt and ill-way, as in England, only 't is somewhat hard to the 
poor horses' feet, which causes them to ride more temperately, 
seldom going out of the trot, or grand pas, as they call it." 
Evelyn, Diary (1644), i, 71. 

3. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 4. 

4. Page 56. 

5. Letters, 11, 52, 53. 

6. Journey to Paris (1776), I, 34, 35. 

7. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 238. 

8. Letters, p. 9. 

46. I. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 157. 

2. Concerning Sardinia, Tivaroni observes: "In 1720 there was 
not a post-office in the entire island, there were no roads, no 
easy means of communication, not even between the principal 
cities." Ibid., i, 183. 

3. Tour on the Continent, iii, 89. 

4. Letters from Italy, p. 266. 

47. 1. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France 

and Italy, 1, 20. 

2. Smollett, Travels, li, 183. 

3. Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, 1, 191. 

4. Ibid, I, 195. 

5. Travels, p. 146. 

6. Voyage en Italic, 11, 146. 

48. I. Remarks on Italy, Works, 11, 330. 

2. Grand Tour, in, 324. A note written on the margin by a later 
tourist remarks, "Very fine road now." 

3. Lettres sur V Italic, 11, 98/. 

. 4. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 341. 

5. Ibid., I, 340, 341. 

6. Voyage en Italic, vii, 238, 239. 

49. I. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 341. 

2. Trevelyan, Garibaldi and the Thousand, p. 146. 

3. CoUetta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1 734-1 843, i, 49. 

4. Cf. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 405. 

5. Incidents like the following were common, and this is from the 
year 1794, on the road between Coblenz and Ems: "Turning 

41S 



NOTES 

PAGE 

49. 5. short by the comer of a hedge, one of our horses fell into a deep 

slough, in which the wheels of our carriage on the left side were 
instantly buried." Cogan, The Rhine, ll, 78. 

50. I. New Voyage to Italy, i^ 87. 

2. Ibid., i2, 503. 

3. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, li, 69. 
. 4. Grand Tour, 11, 68. 

5. View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland, and Ger- 
many, p. 231. A little later he adds (p. 246): "As soon as the 
roads were passable, we left Cassel, and arrived, not without 
difficulty and some risk, at Munden." 

6. Tour through Germany, pp. 73, 74. 

7. Tour in Germany, li, 7. 

8. Ibid., II, I. 

51. I. Letters from Italy, li, 230, 231. 

2. Cogan, The Rhine, 11, 259. 

3. In 1750, Voltaire notes that "one is mired in summer in august 
Germany." He adds: "Of all modem nations, France and the 
little country of the Belgians are the only ones that have roads 
worthy of antiquity." Cited by Babeau, Les Voyageurs en 
France, p. 262. 

4. Essex, Journal of a Tour, etc., p. 55. 



CHAPTER V 

52. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 17. 

2. The Gentleman* s Guide, p. 44. 

3. This appears to have been modeled after the vehicle that Cory- 
ate used early in the century: "I departed from Montrel in a 
cart, according to the fashion of the country, which had three 
hoopes over it, that were covered with a sheet of course can- 
vasse." Crudities, i, 160. 

4. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 10. 

5. Clenche(?), A Tour in France and Italy, p. 21. He adds: 
"Doggs of no kind worth a farthing, and, to conclude, such is 
the nature of the clime or soyl, that it produces no animal in 
perfection, but asses," p. 22. 

53 • I- (Jones) Journey to Paris (1776), I, 32. 

2. Ibid., I, 66, 67. 

3. Travels, i, 5. 

4. Letters, p. 16. 

5. The general bureau of diligences and stage-coaches for the entire 
kingdom was at Paris, in the Rue N6tre Dame des Victoires, 
Subordinate bureaus were to be found in all the large towns. 
Thierry, Almanack des Voyageurs (1785), p. 109. As for prices, 
"The terms on which you travel are explained in the Liste 
g^n^rale des Postes de France, which keeps one from being 
cheated." (Jones) Journey to Paris (1776), i, 33. 

54. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 19. 

2. One traveled in the diligence from Paris to Lyons in five days 
416 



NOTES 

PAGE 

54. 2. three hundred and sixty miles. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en 

France, p. 11. In the middle of the century the diligence was 
"used chiefly in travelling from Paris to Lyons and from Paris 
to Brussels." Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 19. 

3. In making the trip to Lyons, James Edward Smith complains 
of having to rise at four or five in the morning. Tour on the 
Continent, i, 142, 153. 

4. Travels, i, 126. 

5. Page 151. 

6. Views Afoot, p. 461. 

7. Fitzgerald, Life of Sterne, 1, 331. 

8. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France 
and Italy, i, 13, 14. 

55. I. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 261, says that the pace 

was generally a gallop and that changing horses took no time. 
When the route was difficult the distance between relays was 
only two leagues. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 236. 

3. (Cooper) Gleanings in Europe, i, 112, 113; Peale, Notes on 
Italy, pp. 10, II. 

4. Already in 1775 the Lyons diligences were hung on springs 
which made them as comfortable as the post-chaises and the 
berlines. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 13. 

56. I. Carr, The Stranger in France, 42, 43. 

2. The fare by diligence from Paris to Lyons, three hundred and 
sixty mUes, with "maintenance on the road" was in 1763 one 
hundred livres. The journey took five days, — the last two 
days, from Chalons to Lyons, being by boat on the Saone. 
Carr, The Stranger in France, p. 93, gives the price for a place 
in the diligence from Rouen to Paris (ninety miles), with lug- 
gage, as twenty-three livres, eighteen sols. Smollett, Travels, 
I, 125, 126. 

3. Hazlitt found the French stage-coach in his day "a very purga- 
tory of heat, closeness, confinement, and bad smells. Nothing 
can surpass it but the section of a slave-ship or the Black-hole 
of Calcutta." Journey, Works, ix, 184. 

57. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 18, 19. 

2. Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 151. 

3. Letters from Italy, p. 10. 

4. Here and there, as, for example, on the road from Avignon to 
Aix, there were, even late in the century, no fixed stages between 
several towns, "therefore no stipulated price; and it is the cus- 
tom of these voituriers, as they are called, to ask a louis d'or, 
when they mean to take one third." The Gentleman's Guide, 
etc., p. 150. 

5. "These carriages drawn by mules make 30 m. a day." Ibid., 
p. 151. 

6. See Cook, Life of Ruskin, i, 35, 36. 

7. Travels in France, p. 56. 

58. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 19-22. 
2. Travels, 11, 255. 



NOTES 

PAGE 

58. 3. Ibid., I, 127, 128. Cf. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 17. 

59. I. Gray, Letters (ed. Gosse), 11, 17. An Englishman in 1773 re- 

marks, "Their carriages are more clumsy than our dung-carts; 
their inns inferior to an English ale-house." Tour of Holland, 
etc. (1773), p. 221. Nevertheless the French were at this time 
among the best coach-builders in Europe. See Trevelyan, 
Early History of Charles James Fox, p. 274. 

2. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 405, says that "postes" 
were organized as in France throughout a large part of the Con- 
tinent, but nowhere were they so regularly served, or at prices 
more reasonable, or better kept. Yet, in the opinion of some 
Englishmen, "Posting is much more easy, convenient and 
reasonable, upon a just comparison of all circumstances, in 
England than in France. The English carriages, horses, har- 
ness, and roads, are better; and the postilions more obliging 
and alert ..." There is competition in England, "but in 
France the post is monopolized, etc." The Gentleman' s Guide 
(1773). PP- 17, 18. 

3. Notes on a Journey through France, pp. 17, 18. 

4. Travels, 1, 6. " The French post-chaises have only two wheels ; 
and when one person is in them, must have two horses; and if 
two people, they must have three." The Gentleman' s Guide, 
p. 18. Four-wheeled carriages required four horses and two 
drivers. Ibid., p. 19. 

60. I. Travels, i, 127. 

2. Smollett, who was always in trouble, notes that at Chalons the 
axle-tree of his coach actually took fire. Travels, 11, 260. 

3. Travels, 11, 256, 257. 

61. I. That is, without paying six livres every time for the privilege. 
2. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 36, 37. 

62. I. Manners and Customs of Italy, 11, 313. 

2. Carriages with springs were by no means universal, as we see 
from the complaints of Horace Walpole, in 1740: "You will 
wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from Rome. . . . 
We have been jolted to death; my servants let us come with- 
out springs to the chaise, and we are worn threadbare." Letters, 
I, 50. 

3. Starke, Letters from Italy (1798) 11, 265. 

4. Cf. Lady Mary Montagu's experience. She is writing from 
Naples: "Here I am arrived at length, after a most disagree- 
able journey. I bought a chaise at Rome, which cost me twenty- 
five good English pounds; and had the pleasure of being laid 
low in it the very second day after I set out. I had the marvel- 
lous good luck to escape with life and limbs; but my delightful 
chaise broke all to pieces, and I was forced to stay a whole 
day in a hovel, while it was tacked together in such a manner 
as would serve to drag me hither. To say truth, this accident 
has very much palled my appetite for travelling." Letters, 11, 
38. 

5. Young, Travels in France, pp. 265-66. 

63. I. Ibid., p. 266. 

418 



NOTES 

PAGE 
63. 2. Vol. Ill, p. 39. 

3. With this it is interesting to compare the suggestions offered to 
travelers nearly a century later, in Coghlan's Handbook for 
Italy (p. xiv) : — 

"In the Italian states there are three modes of conveyance: 
posting, by diligence, and by vetturini; travellers by the first 
mode should always provide a bolletone at the police-office, 
without which no post-horses can be obtained. 

"In Italy, as in France, the number of horses put to a car- 
riage is regulated by the number of persons; thus a post-chaise 
with two persons requires two horses, three persons three 
horses, and four persons four horses; but in those parts of 
Northern Italy where the roads are level, a calash, or open car- 
riage, with three persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel 
with two horses. 

"In Tuscany, an English post-chaise with a pole, conveying 
three persons and without an imperial, if the road is not 
mountainous, is allowed to travel with two horses, but if 
there is an imperial it must have three horses; and English 
carriages, with four persons, imperial and trunks, must have 
four horses. 

"In the papal dominions, a two- wheeled carriage, with three 
persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel with two horses, 
but with more than one trunk three horses are indispensable; 
a four-wheeled carriage, with six persons and one trunk, is 
allowed to travel with four horses, but with six persons and 
two large trunks, or with seven persons, it must have six horses; 
a four-wheeled half-open carriage, much in use all over Italy, 
with two persons and one trunk, is allowed to travel with two 
horses. 

"In the Neapolitan territories, a two-wheeled carriage, with 
two persons and one large trunk, is allowed to travel with two 
horses, with three persons and two large trunks, three horses; 
with four persons and two large trunks, four horses; but with 
six persons and two large trunks, six horses are indispensable." 

4. The distance between posting-stations all over Italy ranged 
from eight to ten miles. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 307. 

5. Travels, 11, 76. 

6. Voyage en Italie, i, 6. 

7. Ibid., I, 5. 

64. 1. Keysler, Travels, i, 348, 349. 

2. View of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 10. 

3. So in the region about Capua: "The Buffaloes, which draw 
most of the Carriages in this part of the Country, were brought 
in originally by Alphonsus I. They are an ugly, stubborn, and 
sometimes mischievous Animal, but live upon Straw and are 
of prodigious Strength and Service." Breval, Remarks on 
Several Parts of Europe, i, 74. Wright remarks: "The carriages 
in Lombardy, and indeed throughout all Italy, are for the 
most part drawn with oxen. ... In the kingdom of Naples, 
and some other parts, they use buffaloes in their carriages." 

419 



NOTES 

PAGE 

64. 3« Some Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc., 

I, 32. See also ibid., i, 119, 120. 

4. Baretti, Manners and Customs of Italy, p. 280. 

5. Already in the sixteenth century "in Italy the vetturino system 
was in force — that is, a personally conducted tour, the trav- 
eller being relieved from all haggling with natives. By this 
predecessor of the Cook system Moryson travelled from Rome 
to Naples and back." Hughes, Life of Fynes Moryson, p. ix. 

65. I. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 550. 

2. Views Afoot, pp. 102, 403. 

3. He agreed to take them from Florence to Rome "for ten sequins, 
all accommodation included." Tour on the Continent, i, 339. 

4. Ibid., I, 297. 

5. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 540. 

6. Nugent in his Grand Tour (1756), iii, 378, repeats Misson's 
information, except that he states the charge at fifteen crowns 
instead of fifteen piasters; and adds: "You pay your own ex- 
pences at Naples, board and lodging one crown a day each 
person, and half a crown for your servant." William Bromley 
at the end of the seventeenth century paid seventeen crowns 
for the trip from Rome to Naples and back, having five days 
at Naples. His trip is essentially Misson's. See Several 
Years' Travels, etc., p. 122. 

66. I. Travels, iii, i. 

2. Ibid., Ill, 15. 

3. But see Grand Tour, ill, 39. 

4. Ibid., Ill, 378. 

67. I. Journey, Works, ix, 259, 260. 

2. Baretti, in criticizing Sharp, who had hired a vetturino to go 
to Rome, asks, "Did he not conceive that by such a bargain 
he made it the interest of the fellow to take him to the cheapest 
inns, which is as much as to say the most beggarly, that the 
feeding of his fare might cost him little?" Manners and 
Customs of Italy, i, 26. 

3. Such early hours for stages are still common, even in summer, 
at San Marino, at Varese, and other places too numerous to 
mention. 

4. Grand Tour, iii, 39. 

5. Autobiography, li, 344 (Bohn). 

6. Moreover, De La Lande, who is not usually censorious, points 
out several other disadvantages of this system. "It is a sort 
of post, much less expensive, for which a special permission is 
required, but it does not travel at night. Besides, the masters 
of the post are not content when they see people who have the 
cambiatura, the postilions do not drive you so fast; and some- 
times the post-masters annoy travellers by having their car- 
riages weighed so as to charge for whatever is above a hundred 
pounds." Voyage en Italie, 1, 265. 

7. Travels, II, 37. 

. 8. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 539. 
9. Tour on the Continent, 11, 117. 
420 



NOTES 

PAGE 

68. I. But, as Misson had already observed, "A traveller ought never 

to defer enquiring about a carriage, till he is just ready to de- 
part; if he would not be forc'd to submit to the most unreason- 
able terms." New Voyage to Italy, i^, 562. 
2. Grand Tour, lii, 40, 41. 

69. I. Cogan, The Rhine, 11, 258. 

2. Letters from Italy, 11, 211. 

3. As late as 1756 Nugent cites two striking instances: "There is 
no post-waggon from Leipsic to Prague, but a sort of heavy 
coach by the way of Chemnitz, which sets out on Wednesday 
towards eleven in the morning and comes back on Sunday 
noon." Grand Tour, 11, 249. "From Dresden to Prague 
there is no post- waggon, so that you must either hire a coach 
or chaise for the whole journey, or travel with post-horses." 
Ibid., II, 257. 

4. Ibid., II, 68. 

70. I. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 487-88. 

2. "The stages or post-waggons, as they are called, are slow, 
heavy, and disagreeable in every respect." Tour in Germany, 
(1793), p. 2. 

3. Grand Tour, 11, 67, 68. Cf. ibid., I, 175, 176. 

71. I. Riesbeck, Travels through Germany, p. 231. 

2. Tour in Germany, i, 13, 14. 

3. Page 2. 

4. Grand Tour, ll, 68. 

5. Ibid., II, 69. 

72. I. Letters from Italy, ll, 187, 188. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, ll, 282, 283. 

73. I. Ibid., I, 65. 

2. Tour in Holland, p. il. 

3. Grand Tour, i, 49. 

4. Ibid., I, 205. 

5. Ibid., I, 367-72. 

6. Ibid., I, 326. 

74. I. Ibid., I, 326. 

2. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 1, 5. 

3. Cogan, The Rhine, i, 45. 

4. A Description of Holland (1743), p. 1 59. 

5. Ibid., p. 211. 

CHAPTER VI 

75. I. English-French for Dessein's. 

V 2. Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, l, 46, 47. 

76. I. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 257. 

2. Young speaks of "the bad accommodations even in the high 
road from London to Rome. On the contrary, go in England 
to towns that contain 1500, 2000, or 3000 people, in situations 
absolutely cut off from all dependence, or almost the expecta- 
tion of what are properly called travellers, yet you will meet 
with neat inns, well dressed and clean people keeping them, 
421 



NOTES 

PAGE 

76. 2. good furniture, and a refreshing civility." Travels in France, 

P- 57. 

3. Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of 
Patriotic Travellers, p. 66. 

4. Ibid., p. 66. 

5. Ibid., pp. 68-69, 

6. "It being necessary, on the Continent, to carry your own 
sheets, pillows and blankets, when you travel, I would advise 
the doubling them up daUy of a convenient size, and then plac- 
ing them in the carriage by way of cushions, making a leather 
sheet of the envellope." Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 265, 266. 

77. I. An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travel- 

lers, p. 70. 

2. Ibid., p. 59. 

3. Ibid., p. 56. 

4. Ibid., p. 67. 

78. I. Ibid., pp. 66-69. 

2. Letters from Italy, 11, 263, 264. 

3. English tourists did not hesitate to call the kitchens of French 
inns filthy. See Carr, The Stranger in France, pp. 263, 272. 

4. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 278. 

79. I. Fitzgerald, Life of Sterne, 11, 132. 

2. Journal of a Tour through Flanders and France, p. 4. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 33, 34, says: "There are a great many 
very good inns at Paris, where you are sure of being extremely 
well accommodated, according to the figure and expence you 
wish to make." Then follows a long list. 

4. In 1 76 1 the thrifty traveler Willebrandt jotted down the names 
of the best hotels in Paris, the streets where were found the 
most desirable furnished rooms, and showed how to get de- 
jeHner and supper cheaply. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France^ 
p. 258. 

5. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 139. 

6. Travels in France, p. 133. 

7. Smith, Tour on the Co7ili7ient, ill, 240. 

80. I . Les Voyageurs en France, p. 80. 

2. (Jones) Journey to Paris, i, 68, 69. 

3. Travels in France, p. 229. 

4. "St. Geronds," as Young writes it. 

5. Travels in France, p. 57. 

6. Ibid., p. 242. 

7. Ibid., p. 249. 

81. I. Travels, 11, 256. 

2. "Provence is a pleasant country, well cultivated; but the inns 
are not so good here as in Languedoc, and few of them are 
provided with a certain convenience which an English traveller 
can very ill dispense with. Those you find are generally on 
tops of the houses, exceedingly nasty; and so much exposed 
to the weather, that a valetudinarian cannot use them with- 
out hazard of his life." Ibid., i, 197. 

3. Ibid., I, 198. 

422 



NOTES 

PAGE 

8i. 4. Grand Tour, iv, 22. 

5. (Jones) Journey to France, i, 90. 

6. Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 143. 

82. I. Travels in France, p. 35. 

2. Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 301. 

3. Travels in France, p. 35. 

4. One critical Englishman in particular found the French "wines 
in good quantity, but without any flavor, and most of them 
tart and crabbed; provisions of no kind excellent, their poul- 
trey lean, little or no fish, scarce any beef, mutton, nor veal 
that's good." Clenche, A Tour in France and Italy, p. 21. 

5. Travels, i, 129, 130. 

6. Letters, i, 17. 

83. I. Page 208. 

2. A View of Paris (1701), by a Gentleman, p. 71. 

3. Keysler, Travels, 11, 133; Carr, The Stranger in France, p. 113. 

4. Thierry, Almanack du Voyageur (1785), pp. 206, 207. 

5. Page ID. 

6. Young, Travels in France, p. 39. 

84. I. Grand Tour, iv, 34, 35. 

85. I. Classical Tour in Italy, i, 46, 47. 

2. Lettres sur Vltalie, i, 299. 

3. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, 11, 196. 

86. I. Letters from Italy, pp. 43, 44. 

2. Ibid., pp. 45, 46. 

3. Ibid., p. 46. Coryate, Crudities, 11, 58, 59, had already com- 
plained of the cimices in Italian beds. Cf. also Ray's Travels, 
in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 11, 688. 

4. Manners and Customs of Italy, i, 25. The Italians appear, in- 
deed, to have been exceptionally hospitable to strangers. "An 
Italian nobleman, hearing an Englishman complain of the 
accommodation at country inns, expressed his surprise that he 
frequented such places, and observed, that with a few recom- 
mendatory letters he might traverse Italy from one extremity 
to the other, without being once under the necessity of enter- 
ing an irm." Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, iii, 153. 

87. I. Travels, pp. 146, 147. 

2. New Voyage to Italy, i*, 585. Cf. also Duclos, Voyage en Italie, 
CEuvres Completes, ix, 167, 168. Duclos says that the inn at 
Viareggio was the only one in Italy, outside the cities, where 
his party found a good supper and clean beds. 

3. Grand Tour, in, 37. 

4. Letters from Italy, p. 17. 

88. I. Manners and Customs of Italy, il, 321, 322. 

2. Tour on the Continent, i, 353, 354. 

3. Travels, 11, 12. Smollett was certainly the most unfortunate of 
travelers. "At the post-house in Lerici," says he, "the ac- 
commodation is intolerable. We were almost poisoned at 
supper." Ibid., 11, 36. 

4. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, i, 266. 

89. I. Wyndham, Travels through Europe, i, 136. 

423 



NOTES 

PAGE 

89. 2. A Late Journey to Tuscany, Rome, etc. (1741), p. 16. 

3. Travels, 11, 89. 

4. Travels, 11, 165. 

90. I. Ibid., II, 174. 

2. Letters from Italy, p. 223. 

3. Ibid., p. 265. 

4. That conditions throughout Italy had not greatly improved 
as late as 1847 we may learn from the following passage in a 
widely used guide-book. The testimony is the more significant 
as the makers of guide-books are likely to understate the 
difficulty of travel in the country they are exploiting : — 

"On the road between Florence and Naples I "have seldom 
mentioned the inns, for really they are scarcely deserving the 
name: besides, each vetturini [!] has his own favourite house 
to stop at, and it is always better to let him go there. 
Italian Beds 

Will astonish, and no doubt please, married people who have 
been screwed up in small German and Swiss beds; the first 
sample, after passing the Alps by the Simplon, is seen at the 
ancient poste, Domo d'Ossola; and generally throughout 
Italy they are large enough for a man and his wife and four 
juveniles — but, notwithstanding their convenient size, they 
are not particularly soft; one thin mattress of wool is generally 
placed on the top of a palliasse, composed of dried leaves of 
Indian corn; a reaUy comfortable bed should have two wool 
mattresses at least; this, by giving a little notice to the cham- 
bermaid (i. e., man) will be readily effected. Madame Starke 
recommended travellers to carry their own sheets: had she 
also advised people to carry their own pillows, it would have 
been a wise suggestion; they are even now precious hard and 
flat, they must have been bullets in her time. Mosquito 
curtains are made of a fine muslin, which should be drawn 
tightly down; curtains with openings at the sides are literally 
of no use, the insinuating tormentors would creep through the 
eye of a needle." Coghlan, Hand-Book for Italy (1847), p. xx. 

5. Tivaroni, Storia del Risorgimento Italiano, 1, 340, 341. 

6. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, 1^, 382. 

7. Letters from Italy, p. 63. 

91. I. Ibid., p. 187. 

2. Travels, pp. 157, 158. 

3. "St. Marco and II Pelegrino [at Bologna] have for some years 
past been famous for being the best inns in Italy." Keysler, 
Travels, iii, 249. 

4. Lettres sur l' Italic, ll, 255. 

92. I. Grand Tour, in, 291, 

2. Nugent counts the best inns at Naples Li tre Re, La Croce 
d'Oro, and Alle Colombe. "You may board and lodge in 
these inns for ten carlini a day, and for twelve carlini a day you 
may have a coach." Grand Tour, in, 401. (A carlin was a 
silver coin worth about eight cents.) 

3. English-Italian for Piazza. 

424 



NOTES 



PAGE 



92. 4. Northall, Travels through Italy, pp. 196, 197. 

5. Grand Tour, in, 92. 

6. But even Sharp admits that not every district was hopelessly 
bad. "In Savoy, amongst the Alps, we were often astonished 
at the excellence of their diet; so great is the disparity be- 
twixt French and ItaUan cooks, on the Savoy and the Loretto 
roads." Letters frotn Italy, p. 1^6. 

7. Burnet, Travels, p. 85. 

93. I. Misson agrees with Burnet: "The inns in the little towns, 

especially on certain roads, are very ill fumish'd with provi- 
sions. The first course, which they call the Antipasto, is a 
dish of giblets boil'd with salt and pepper, and mix'd with 
whites of eggs. After which course, come one after another of 
different ragous. Between Rome and Naples the traveller is 
sometimes regal'd with buflfalos and crows; and he's a happy 
man that can meet with such dainties." New Voyage to Italy, 
^^ 392. 

2. Letters from Italy, 11, 58, 59. 

3. Manners and Customs of Italy, ll, 199. 

4. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 11, 318. 

94. I. To this day the butter for Sicilian hotels is mainly imported 

from northern Italy. 

2. Two bajocchi were equal to an English penny. 

3. Coghlan, Hand-Bookfor Italy (1847), p. 309. 

4. Manners and Customs of Italy, 11, 202. 

5. Starke, Letters from Italy, li, 344. 

6. Ihid., II, 336. 

7. Ihid., II, 53. 

8. Ray, Travels, in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 11, 
661. 

9. Autobiography, 11, 411. 

95. I. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 225. 

2. Tour through Germany, (1792)1 P- 82. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, li, 246. 

4. Ihid., II, 337. 

96. I. Ibid., II, 211. 

2. Letters from Italy, 11, 217. 

3. Ibid., II, 253. 

4. Tour through Germany, p. 370. 

5. Travels through Germany, p. 225. 

97. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, n, 80, 81. 

2. Letters, i, 200. 

3. Ibid., I, 222. 

4. Riesbeck, Travels through Germany, p. 209. 

98. I. View of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 3. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 419. 

3. All the road from Heidelberg to Nuremberg "straw was com- 
monly our bed." Misson, New Voyage to Italy, iS 126. 

4. "Invalids who travel through Germany should take a small 
warming-pan with them." Starke, Letters from Italy, li, 188. 

5. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 67. 

425 



NOTES 

PAGE 

98. 6. Ibid., II, 67. 

99. I. Starke, Letters from Italy, ir, 209. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 68. 

3. Ibid., II, 80. 

100. I. The Rhine, i, 140, 141. 

2. Towr through Germany (1792), p. 276. 

3. 76id., p. 268. 

4. Letters from Italy, 11, 210. 

5. i4 Description of Holland, p. 207. 
loi. I. Grand Tour, i, 222. 

2. Travels in France, p. 109. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 90. 

4. /4 Description of Holland, p. 200. , 

5. Cf. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 50. 

6. Smith, Towr on the Continent, I, 46. 
102. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 49, 50. 

2. ^ Description of Holland, p. 210. 



CHAPTER VII 

104. I. Letters concerning the Present State of England, p. 240. 

2. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vii, 230-31. 

105. I. Letters, 11, 30. 

2. Such, at least, was the opinion of foreigners. See Moore, View 
of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 372. 

3. The Gentleman's Guide (1770), p. i, introduces the book with 
the remark: "A fondness for travel being the characteristic of 
the English, more than of any other nation," etc. 

4. Traill, Social England, v, 345. 

5. "It is much to be regretted," says Andrews, "that the majority 
of our travellers run over to France from no other motives than 
those which lead them to Bath, Tunbridge, or Scarborough. 
Amusement and dissipation are their principal, and often their 
only, views." Letters to a Young Gentleman, p. 2. 

106. I. Ibid., p. 13. 

2. As illustrating the slowness of travel we may note that when 
George III was taken ni in 1788 a messenger was dispatched by 
the Duke of Portland to summon Charles James Fox, who was 
then at Bologna. "He at once set out on his return, and, after 
nine days' incessant travelling, arrived in London on November 
24." Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, \, 
381. 

107. I. Diary, i, 228. 

2. Andrews, Letters to a Young Gentleman, pp. 574-75. 

3. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, ll. Preface, pp. v, vi. 

4. Cogan, The Rhine, 11, 46. 

108. I. (Jones) Journey to France (1776), ll, 117. 

2. Lettres sur V Italic, p. 87. 

3. Les Voyageurs en France, p. 3. 

4. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, il, 106, 107. 

426 



NOTES 

PAGE 

109. 1. Letters, i, 35. (Florence, January 24, 1740, N.S.) 

2. Letters, l, 42. 

3. Letters, i, 59. (Walpole to West, Florence, October 2, 1740, 
N.S.) 

4. HazUtt hits off the wild generalizations common in his day: 
"Because the French are animated and full of gesticulation, 
they are a theatrical people; if they smile and are polite, they 
are like monkeys — an idea an Englishman never has out of his 
head, and it is well if he can keep it between his lips." Journey, 
Works, IX, 139. "If we meet with anything odd or absurd in 
France, it is immediately set down as French and characteristic 
of the country, though we meet with a thousand odd and dis- 
agreeable things every day in England (that we never met 
before) without taking any notice of them." Ibid., ix, 141. 

5. Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 147. 
no. I. Diary, i, 192. 

2. Several Years' Travels, etc., p. 116. 

3. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 555. 

4. Lettres critiques et historiques sur I'ltalie, II, 67. 

5. Travels through Italy, p. 33. 

6. Note, for example, her remarks on Arezzo, Letters from Italy, ll, 
179. 

111. I. Faulconbridge, in King John, Act I, Sc. i. 

2. Baretti, Manners and Customs of Italy, i, 2. 

3. Ibid., I, 4. 

4. Ibid., I, 28. 

5. Ibid., I, 100. 

112. I. A Short Account of a Late Journey to Tuscany, Rome, etc., p. 37. 

2. Ibid., p. 53. 

3. See Travels, i, 211. 

113. I. V. Knox, Liberal Education, ll, 98. 

114. 1. An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travel- 

lers, I, I. 

2. Letters to a Young Gentleman, p. 556. 

3. Berchtold, An Essay, etc., i, 16. 

115. I. A tourist was advised always to carry paper, pen, and ink in 

his pocket and jot down comments upon the most remarkable 
things that he saw. Says Berchtold, "The daily remarks ought 
to be copied from the pocket book into the journal before the 
traveller goes to rest." (An Essay, etc., i, 4^-) He adds (p. 45) 
that it is "imprudent and often very dangerous, for a traveller 
to lend his journal." 

2. But Bourgoanne, Travels in Spain, p. 314, speaks of the ignor- 
ance of French among Spaniards in the eighteenth century. 

3. Paris, April 21, N.S., 1739. 

116. I. Tovey, Gray and his Friends, p. 40. 

2. Studies of a Biographer, 11, 40, 41. 

3. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, ll, 236. 

4. Ibid., II, 277. 

5. Ibid., II, 307 (1768). 

117. I. Ibid., II, 2l8. 

427 



NOTES 

PAGE 

117. 2. Walpole, Letters, v, 487. 

3. Ibid., IV, 410. 

4. Ibid., II, 228. 

5. Ibid., IV, 412. 

6. Ibid., IX, 161. 

7. "The Importation of German," in Studies of a Biographer, 11, 

38-75. 

118. I. Reid, Life of Lord Houghton, 11, 254. 

119. I, "Whenever the circumstances of the parent will permit, a 

private tutor of character must be engaged ... to inspect his 
pupil not only in the hours of study, but also of amusement; 
and I would give particular directions, that the pupil should 
associate with none but the private tutor and those whom he 
may approve." V. Knox, Liberal Education, 11, 112. 
2. Andrews, Letters to a Young Gentleman, p. 52. 

120. I. "On Foreign Travel," in Liberal Education, 11, 305. 
2. Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Ray. 

122. I. Letters, 11, 219, 220. 

2. Ibid., II, 409. 

3. Ibid., IV, 397. 

4. Ibid., V, 115. 

123. I. "A young man, bom with the certainty of succeeding to an 

opulent fortune, is commonly too much indulged during in- 
fancy for submitting to the authority of a governor." Chester- 
field, On the Passions and Vices of Boys. 
2. " My travelling servant babbles all languages, but speaks none." 
Earl of Cork and Orrery, Letters from Italy, p. 20. 

124. I. Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of 

Patriotic Travellers, i, 47. 

2. "The characteristic hatred of foreigners was shown by a furious 
disturbance in 1738 because French actors were employed at 
the Haymarket and some years afterwards by the sacking of 
Drury Lane Theatre because Garrick had employed in a spec- 
tacle some French dancers." Lecky, History of England in tJie 
Eighteenth Century, 11, 113. 

3. "One of the complaints," says Andrews, "urged against the 
English by the French, and indeed by most foreigners, is a 
superciliousness of disposition that inclines them to undervalue 
whatever they meet with abroad. More enmity has accrued 
to us from this than from any other cause." Letters to a Young 
Gentleman, p. 8. Cf. ihid., p. 63. 

125. I. Letters from Italy, p. 246. 

2. Classical Tour in Italy, iii, 40. 

126. I. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 429. 

2. But note the English point of view in the following remarks by 
Dr. Thomas Arnold: "It will not do to contemplate ourselves 
only, or, contenting ourselves with saying that we are better 
than others, scorn to amend our institutions by comparing them 
with those of other nations. Our travellers and our exquisites 
imitate the outside of foreign customs without discrimination, 
just as in the absurd fashion of not eating fish with a knife, 
428 



NOTES 



PAGE 



126. 2. borrowed from the French, who do it because they have no 

knives fit for use. But monkeyish imitation will do no good." 
Stanley's Lije oj Dr. Arnold, 11, 343. 

3. Letters, iv, 402. 

4. Ibid., IX, 35. 

5. It is interesting to compare with the comments of Lady Mary 
those of Dr. Thomas Arnold, about a century later (July 17, 
1830). "I was struck, too, with the total isolation of England 
from the European world. We are considered like the inhabi- 
tants of another planet, feared perhaps, and respected in 
many points, and in no respect understood or sympathized 
with. And how much is our state the same with regard to the 
Continent. How little do we seem to know, or to value their 
feelings, — how little do we appreciate or imitate their intel- 
lectual progress." Stanley's Life of Dr. Arnold, 11, 333, 334. 

127. I. Letters, il, 29. 

2. Cogan, The Rhine, i, 134. 

128. I. Andrews strongly advises young Englishmen who go to Paris 

to frequent the coffee-houses: "You will, if you are wise, often 
repair to these houses ; and lay aside that pernicious pride, which 
prompts so many of our countrymen abroad to disdain all 
company, but that of persons of the highest rank." Letters 
to a Young Gentleman, p. 44. 

129. I. "The memoirs of last century swarm with proofs that young 

Englishmen of family were only too well received in Continental, 
and most of all in Italian, drawing-rooms." Trevelyan, Early 
Life of Charles James Fox, p. 55. 

2. Grand Tour, 11, 45. 

3. Baretti, Manners and Customs of Italy, ll, 317, 318. 

4. Letters, i, 365. 

5. Ihid., IV, 352. 

6. Ibid., V, 252. 

7. Ibid., VI, 281. 

8. Cf. ibid., II, 261; V, 135; VI, 269, 359; VII, 259, 267; V, 414. 

130. I. Travels, li, 188. 

131. I. Ibid., 11, 261. 

2. Journey, Works, ix, 102. 

3. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 18. 

132. I. Ibid., pp. 39-41- 

2. Earl of Cork and Orrery, Letters from Italy, pp. 142-43. 

133. I. Page 76. 

2. Letters, 11, 233. 

134. I. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., pp. 36, 37. 

135. I. Ibid., p. 226. 

2. Early History of Charles James Fox, p. 274. 

3. For example, when in Paris, Horace Walpole goes into raptures 
over Lesueur's pictures illustrating the life of St. Bruno. "But 
sure they are amazing! I don't know what Raphael may be in 
Rome, but these pictures excel all I have seen in Paris and 
England." Letters, i, 19. 

136. I. Travels through Italy, -p. ^7. 

429 



NOTES 

PAGE 

136. 2. Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire appeared be- 

tween 1776 and 1788. 

137. I. See the remarks on Gothic architecture in a paper in the World, 

No. 26 (1753). Chalmers, British Essayists, xxii, 143, 144. 

2. It is hardly necessary to point out that the term "Gothic" is 
very loosely used in the eighteenth century and applied to 
"every ancient building which is not in the Grecian mode." 
See citation from Langley's Ancient Architecture Restored 
(1742), in the Oxford Dictionary, s.v. "Gothic" was a common 
synonym for "barbarous." 

3. Les Voyageurs en France, p. 43. 

4. Ibid., p. 62. 

5. Diary, i, 130. 

6. Ibid., I, 179. Cf. his remarks on "St. Stephen's" (St. fitienne) 
in Paris, ibid., i, 265, which he thinks beautiful, "though 
Gothic." 

7. Wyndham, Travels, i, 398. 

8. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 1, 48. 

9. Travels through Italy, p. 39. 

10. Ibid., p. 108. 

11. Voyage en Italie, \iu, ^2). 

138. I. Page 147. 

2. New Voyage to Italy, ii*, 239. Addison had no feeling for, or 
understanding of, Gothic architecture. See his remarks on the 
cathedral of Siena, Remarks on Italy, pp. 313, 314. 

3. Earl of Cork and Orrery, Letters from Italy, p. 5. 

4. Grand Tour, iv, 195. 

5. Ibid., IV, 180. 

6. Ibid., IV, 270. Some of Nugent 's estimates of other French 
Gothic buildings are found in his Grand Tour, iv : Paris (Sainte- 
Chapelle), p. 55; Sens, pp. 167, 168; Metz, p. 205; Strassburg, 
p. 207; Troyes, p. 213; Bourges, p. 257 (this he pronounces 
"one of the finest Gothic structures in France," but he makes 
no mention of the superb old glass or of the great carved door- 
ways); Le Mans, p. 271; Rouen, p. 282; Caen, p. 285; Rheims, 
p. 297, etc. 

139. I. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 177. 

2. Vol. I, p. 20. 

3. Vol. I, p. 15. 

4. Vol. I, loi. 

5. Vol. II, 109. 

CHAPTER VIII 

141. I. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 69. 

2. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, li, 320. 

142. I. Cf. Chapter II. 

143. I. Evelyn returned by land from Naples to Rome for fear of Turk- 

ish pirates. Diary, 1, 169. 
2. Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patri- 
otic Travellers, 1, 77. 

430 



NOTES 

PAOE 

143. 3. Keysler observes that the sea trip from Genoa to Leghorn was 

least interrupted by pirates in the autumn and winter. Travels, 

I, 473- 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, in, 377, 378. 

5. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 366. 

6. Ibid., I, 342. 

144. I. A Short Account oj a late Journey to Tuscany, Rome, etc., 

PP- 2, 3- 

2. Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of 
Patriotic Travellers, p. 50. 

3. Cf. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, ii^, 379; Wyndham, Travels, 
I, 194. 

145. I. Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vii, 338, 

340. 

2. Letters, vi, 129. See also, ibid., viii, 88, 89. 

3. See Evelyn's Diary, i, 271; Journal of Major Ferrier, pp. 26, 
36. 

4. Cf. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 256. 

5. (Jones) Journey to Paris, 1, 63, 64. 

6. Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey through France, p. 8. 

146. I. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 209. 

2. Essex, Journal of a Tour, etc., p. 38. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, n, 68. 

4. Coryate, Crudities, 11, 308. 

5. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, v, 169. 

6. Nugent, Grand Tour, in, 307, 308. 

7. Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic, p. 82. 

8. Cf. Dupaty, Lettres sur V Italie, in, 87, 88. 

9. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, l, 351. 

147. I. Ibid., I, 342. Cf. also ibid., i, 315, 339, 352. 

2. During the reign of Charles of Bourbon, "In the city of Naples 
alone, the judicial census numbered 30,000 thieves. Homi- 
cides, inroads of banditti, and violent acts of robbery, were 
frequent in the provinces; and there were so many cases of 
poisoning in the city, that the king instituted a Court of Magis- 
tracy called the Giunta de' Veleni to discover and punish the 
delinquents." Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 
h 52, 53- 

3. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 425. 

4. New Voyage to Italy, 11^, 397. 

5. Travels, i, 345. 

6. Ibid., Ill, 22. 

7. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, l, 296, 315. 

148. I. New Letters from an English Traveller, pp. 43, 44. The evil 

reputation of Naples continued long. "From the moment you 
land till you quit Naples, always carry yt)ur handkerchief in 
your hat, and your purse in your breast-pocket, and your 
watch well secured with a strong guard: the pick-pockets in 
Naples are the most expert in Europe." Coghlan, Hand- 
Book for Italy (1847), p. 340. 
2. View of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 231. 

431 . 



PAGE 
148. 


3- 


149. 


4- 
I. 
2. 


151. 


I. 

2. 


152. 


3- 
I. 
2. 



NOTES 

A n Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travel- 
lers, I, 51. 

Grand Tour, iii, 37, 38. 
Misson, New Voyage to Italy, l^, 585. 

An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travel- 
lers, I, 48. 

Crudities, 1, 152, 153. 

Ibid., I, 155. Cf. the Journal of Major Richard Ferrier, p. 18. 
Diary, i, 34. 

The Stranger in France, p. 26. 

Even late in the nineteenth century the system was a perpetual 
plague. Note the following, in a guide-book of the year 1847: 
"In every part of Italy, except the Austrian states, the vise to 
a traveller's passport must be paid for, varying from i to 12 
pauls, to the police, then to the English consul, and lastly by 
the consul of the state you are about entering. It should, 
however, be always borne in mind that the vise of a miinister, 
on proceeding from France, Germany or Switzerland, author- 
izes your entering that country for once only, and having left 
it, to return, it must again receive a similar vise either from a 
minister or a consul. It is also important to know that the 
number in each family should be particularly specified, and 
whenever a separation takes place previous to embarking, 
particular notice should be given to the police to that effect, as 
the number of persons registered as having embarked (copied 
from the passports) must be forthcoming when the vessel ar- 
rives; in some cases the passengers are called one by one by 
name, but in all they are passed from one part of the vessel to 
the other." Coghlan, Hand-Book for Italy, pp. xx-xxi. Cf. 
Coghlan's remarks on the need of passports at Milan and 
Florence, pp. 85, 158. Bayard Taylor, Views Afoot, p. 503, 
says, that " in Italy they are the traveller's greatest annoyance." 

3. Grand Tour, III, 38, 39. 

4. Northall, Travels through Italy, p. 460. "Without a license 
from the secretary . . , [strangers] cannot stay above four days 
in Genoa." Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, 141. 

5. Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, 306; cf. Northall, Travels through 
Italy, p. 421. 

6. Some Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc., 

I, 389- 

153. I. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 376. 

2. Keysler, Travels, in, 6; Starke, Letters from Italy, il, 326. 

3. Starke, Letters from Italy, u, 252. 

4. Cogan, The Rhine, 1, 256. 

5. Cross, Life of Sterne, pp. 289, 290. 

6. Tour of Holland, etc., p. 209. 

7. Thierry, Almanach du Voyageur (1785), p. 388. 

154. I. The Stranger in France, p. 258. 

2. Cf. Peale, Notes on Italy (1829), p. 193. 

3. Crudities, i, 214. Cf. Fynes Moryson, Shakespeare's England, 
p. 460. 

432 



NOTES 

PAGE 

154. 4. Cf. Evelyn's Diary, i, 201; Bromley, Several Years' Travels, 

etc., p. loi ; etc. 
5. Ray, Travels through the State of Venice, in Harris's Collection 
of Voyages, ii, 687. 

155. I. Grand Tour, in, 117; cf. Starke, Letters from Italy, i, 193, 

2. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., i, iii. "The curate and the doctor (without seeing 
the patient) declare that X Y is unable through his iniSrmity 
to abstain from eating meat." 

3. Ibid., I, 389. 

4. References to this matter are very numerous. The following is 
one of the more quotable: "The entering within the palace is 
exceedingly offensive to the sight and smeU, for the people 
leave here great tokens of their liberty." Northall, Travels 
through Italy, i, 437. 

5. Very early in the nineteenth century Eustace remarks that the 
"want of cleanliness is applicable to most of the palaces on the 
Continent as well as to those in Italy." Classical Tour in Italy, 
I, 23. See also The Gentleman's Guide, pp. 188, 189. 

156. I. Keysler, Travels, 11, 133; Starke, Letters from Italy, 203. 

2. Shakespeare's England, p. 350. Coryate cites more than one 
instance of the same sort of thing. Crudities, i, 255; 11, 205. 

3. In France, under the ministry of Turgot, diligences began to 
travel at night; and of course had to be admitted after sunset 
into the cities along the route. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en 
France, p. 12. 

4. View of Society and Manners in Italy, in, 215. 

5. Tour on the Continent, i, 5. 

157. I. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 369. 

2. Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of 
Patriotic Travellers, p. 50. 

3. Ibid., I, 72. 

158. I. Ibid., I, 73. 
2. Ibid., I, 74. 

159. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 19-21. 

2. Letters concerning the Present State of the French Nation (1767), 
p. 87. 

3. The inspectors at the gates of Paris were so strict that they even 
stopped and examined promenaders returning from the Bois de 
Boulogne. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 285. 

160. I. Journal of a Tour through Part of Flanders and France, p. 5. 

2. Travels, 11, 226. 

3. Tour on the Continent, i, 147. 

4. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 285. 

5. Duclos comments sharply on the inconvenience of the frequent 
custom-houses, and on the diversity of money, which must be 
constantly exchanged. CEuvres Completes, ix, 176. 

6. Grand Tour, iii, 38, 39. 

7. Cf. Smith, Tour on the Continent, in, 23; Muirhead, Journals of 
Travels in Parts of the Late Austrian Low Countries, etc., p. 13. 

8. This was an ancient right. Note the e.'casperating particularity 

433 



NOTES 

PAGE 

i6o. 8. with which every traveler was searched in Fynes Moryson's 
time at the gates of Ferrara. Shakespeare's Europe (ed. Hughes), 
pp. 127, 128. 
9. Travels through Italy, p. 33. 

161. I. Travels,!, z^^. For Milan, compare Evelyn's Diary, I, 231, 237. 

2. Smith, Tour of the Continent, I, 356. 

3. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., i, 133. 

4. A Short Account of a Late Journey to Tuscany, Rome, etc., p. 2. 
Duclos says that he was careful not to have among his books 
the Voyage of Misson, which would have been confiscated, since 
it was in the Index of prohibited books. OSuvres Completes, ix, 

175- 

5. Tour on the Continent, 11, 76, 77. 

6. Cf. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 547; Tivaroni, Storia Critica 
del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 363, 364. 

7. Several Years' Travels, etc., p. 141. 

8. A mule's. 

162. I. Travels (ed. 1737), p. 134- 

2. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 521. 

3. Ibid., i2, 521. 

4. A tourist's note in Misson adds: "There has been some 
alteration about that in Holland." 

5. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 362. 

163. I. Travels through Germany, p. 61. 

2. Letters from Italy, 11, 208. 

3. In Coryate's time there were eleven towns between Mainz and 
Cologne where boats were detained until the master had "paid 
custome for his passage." Crudities, 11, 295. 

4. Cogan, The Rhine, 11, 343. 

164. I. Ibid., II, 343. 

2. Ibid., II, 343. 

3. Tour through Germany, p. 347. 

4. Journal of a Tour through Part of Flanders and France, p. 6. 

5. Ibid., p. 10. 

6. Ibid., p. 24. 

7. Muirhead, Journals of Travels in Parts of the Late Austrian Low 
Countries, etc., p. 13. 

165. I. Letters, vi, 272. 

2. Jesse, George Selwyii and his Contemporaries, l, 319. 

3. Ibid., I, 337, 339. 

167. I. Ibid., IV., 323. 

2. Starke, Letters from Italy, ii, 195. 

3. Coghlan, Hand-Book for Italy, Introduction. 

168. 1. Italy, 1, 452, note. 

2. Walpole, Letters, ix, 292. 

3. Encyclopcedia Britannica (nth ed.) vi, 406. 

4. A letter to her husband in 1740 remarks that all letters sent 
from Rome are opened there. Letters, 11, 63. 

169. I. Ibid, II, 67. 

2. Ibid, II, 184. •* 

434 



NOTES 

CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

172. I. Page 78/. 

2. Berchtold, An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patri- 
otic Travellers, i, 62. Cf. also Thierry, Almanack du Voyas>eur 
(1785), P- 78. 

In the Oxford Dictionary the earliest mention of a bill of ex- 
change is under the year 1579. Pepys uses the term in 1661, 
Steele m 1713, etc. See also Coryate's Crudities, i, 423, 

3. Memoirs (1857), i, 191. Evelyn's, by the way, is the earhest 
mention of an English letter of credit in the Oxford Dictionary. 

4. Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 294, 

173. r. Peale, Notes on Italy, p. 14. 
174' I- Tour on the Continent, 11, 73. 

2. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 497. 

3. Grand Tour, 11, 59. 

175. I. Ibid., II, 60. 

2. Mariana Starke, in 1798, says: "The best money for traveUers 
to take from Tuscany into Germany is sovranes, which may 
usually be purchased in a German shop near the Post-office at 
Florence, and in many other shops, for sixty-two or sixty-three 
pauls each, and sometimes for less." Letters from Italy 11 
349, 350. 

3. Grand Tour, iii, 30. 

4. Twenty-eight lire. 

5. Nugent, Grand Tour, in, 35. 

176. I. Ibid., Ill, 34, 35. 

2. It is not uninteresting to add, by way of comparison, a state- 
ment of the variety of monetary systems in Italy even as late 
as the middle of the nineteenth century. I quote from a well- 
known guide-book pubHshed in 1847: "The moneys most cur- 
rent in Italy, and upon which there is the least loss, are napo- 
leons and Spanish dollars; the last are current for 9K to 10 
pauls. On the whole napoleons are the best, but for families 
posting on the road Spanish dollars, or the largest silver coins 
of the country through which they happen to be passing at the 
time, are most convenient. All over Italy the money is reck- 
oned by livres and hundredths, or centimes, exactly corres- 
ponding to the French francs. The accounts are generally in 
pauls, particularly in the Papal and Tuscan states. . . There 
being three currencies, the lira Italiana, the lira Milanese, the 
lira Austriaca, or Zwanziger, it causes considerable confusion 
to strangers. In shopping always inquire which is meant." 
Coghlan, Hand-Book for Italy, p. xxi. 

3. Grand Tour, iv, 307. 

4. Ibid., I, 51. 

5. Ibid., I, 53. 

177. I. Cf. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i', 574. 

2. The Gentleman' s Guide, p. 15. 

3. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 256. 

435 



NOTES 

PAGE 

177. 4. Ibid., II, 255, 256. 

178. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 19. 

2. Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 302. 

3. Travels, i, 140. 

4. Ibid., II, 247. 

5. Tour on the Continent, I, 193. 

179. I. Smollett, Travels, i, 287. 

2. Autobiography, (ed. Ingpen), il, 180. 

3. Letters, 11, 79. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 166. 

5. The Gentleman' s Guide, p. 40. 

6. Journey, Works, ix, 95. 

180. I. Grand Tour, iv, 113, 114. 

2. De Brosses, Lettres sur Vltalie, l, 210. 

3. Ibid., 1, 153. For the price of post-horses in Piedmont and 
Savoy, see Starke, Letters from Italy, li, 346. For the established 
prices for the passage of Mont Cenis, see ibid., ll, 346-48. 

4. Voyage en Italie, vii, 465. 

5. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 312. 

6. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, i, 436. 

7. Travels, 11, 73. 

181. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, ill, 41, 42. 

2. Letters from Italy, i, i, 2. j 

3. Ibid., II, 374. 

4. Journey, Works, ix, 197. 

5. ZiJcZ., IX, 227. In 1847, we are told, "The usual cost for four 
persons en vetturini from Bologna to Florence or Padua is 5 
Napoleons, meals, beds, etc., included, occupying two days 
each way." Coghlan, Hand- Book for Italy, p. 150. 

182. I. About $40.50. 

2. Tour on the Continent, 11, 316. 

3. Ibid., II, 68. 

4. Ibid., II, 153-54- 

5. Nugent, Grand Tour, ll, 69. 

6. Tour in Germany, pp. 2, 3. For the price of post-horses in Ger- 
many, see also Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 348, 349. 

183. I. New Voyage to Italy, 1^, 486, 487. 

2. The Rhine, 1, 13. 

3. Yet the fare from London to Brighton in a coach that went 
three times a week was sixteen shillings for sixty miles. The 
Gentleman's Guide, p. 38. 

4. The Rhine, i, 13. 

5. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 487, says, "The carriage of 
baggage must be paid apart when a passenger has more than 
a single portmantle. 'Tis in vain to contend with the Dutch 
boat-men." 

6. Essex, Journal of a Tour, etc., p. 10. 

7. Ibid. 

8. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 3. 

184. I. Letters, 11, 80. One could live at one of the best inns of Toulouse 

as late as 1770 for three livres a day. The GenUeman's Guide, 

436 



NOTES 

PAGE 

184. I. p. 182. The best inn at Avignon for board and lodging asked 

but "three livres five sols a day." Ihid., p. 146, 

2. Quoted in Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. Sterne. 

3. Letters, 11, 70. Dr. Moore, in View of Society and Manners in 
France, etc., p. 77, says that strangers find everything dear at 
Geneva. 

4. Letters, 11, 82. 

5. Letters, p. 19, 

6. Travels, i, 61. 

185. I. Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 152, 153. 

2. Smollett, Travels, i, 129. 

3. In Hazlitt's day charges appear to have decidedly advanced. 
"The common charges at the inns are much the same as in 
England; we paid twenty pence for breakfast, and half a crown, 
or three shillings, for dinner." HazHtt, Journey, Works, ix, 97. 
It is instructive to note the prices paid by Bayard Taylor at 
French inns about the middle of the nineteenth century, re- 
membering, of course, that he was obliged to economize and 
to go to unpretending hostelries. "We could always procure 
beds for five sous, and as in the country inns one is only charged 
for what one chooses to order, our frugal suppers cost us but 
little." Views Afoot, p. 447, 

4. Journal of a Tour, p. 8. 

5. Tour of Holland, pp. 131, 132. 

186. I. Travels, 11, 235. 

2. New Voyage to Italy, i", 539, 540. 

187. I. "It is not certainly in money matters the French can pretend to 

make a figure equal to that of the English; we are incompara- 
bly a much wealthier people." Andrews, letters to a Young 
Gentleman, p. 546. "England is the only country in Europe 
whose inhabitants never leave it in search of fortune." Moore, 
View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 220. 

2. Shakespeare's Europe, p. 478. 

3. Letters, v, 236. 

4. Foote's Works, iv, loi. 
i88. I. Letters, 11, 295. 

2. Baretti, Manners and Customs of Italy, 11, 311, 312. 

3. Cf. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 77. 

4. De Brosses, Lettres sur l' Italic, 11, 155. 

189. I. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 4. The advice is given that "One 
should never offer more than half the price demanded" (p. 5). 

2. Letters, p. 41. Cf. Moore, View of Society and Manners in 
France, etc., p. 77. Compare the more guarded statement of 
Smollett concerning Nice: "I have mentioned the prices of 
almost all the articles in house-keeping, as they are paid by 
the English; but exclusive of butcher's meat, I am certain 
the natives do not pay so much by thirty per cent." Travels, 
1,311. 

3. Tour in Italy, p. 256. By an American. 

4. "The Valet-de-place who hires your carriage receives his 
monthly fee from the Jobman, while you pay dearer in conse- 

437 



NOTES 

PAGE 

189. 4. quence; nay, every Artist or Mechanic you employ, and every 

article you purchase, is, generally speaking, taxed by these 
people or by your Courier." Starke, Letters from Italy, Ap- 
pendix, II, 266-67. De Brosses complains bitterly of the ex- 
tortion practiced by Italian coachmen, etc. Lettres sur V Italic, 
I, 94-96. 
5. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 16. 

190. I. Ibid., p. 174. 

2. Travels, i, 168, 169. 

3. Ibid., II, 236, 

191. I. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 1 1. 

2. Travels in France, p. 122. 

3. The signature gave neither the name of the hotel, nor his own 
name. Ibid., p. 287. 

192. I. L. Hunt, Autobiography (ed. Ingpen), 11, 176. Cf. also Haz- 

litt's remarks, Works, ix, 265. 

193. I. Tour on the Continent, iii, 80. 

2. Ibid., Ill, 67. 

3. Ibid., II, 382. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, 40. 

5. Travels, 11, 168. 

6. Shakespeare' s Europe, p. 414. 

194. I. Harris, Collection of Voyages and Travels, II, 684. 

2. Travels, p. 330. 

3. Tour on the Continent, 1, 275-76. 

4. Ibid., Ill, 40. 

5. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 50. 

195. I. Lettres sur I'ltalie, i, 210. 

2. Voyage en Italic, 11, 146. 

3. Letters from Italy, li, 272, 273. 

4. The Julio was worth a little less than 6d. 

5. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, V', 542. 

6. Lady Knight's Letters, p. 53. 

196. I. Ibid., p. 104. 

2. Ibid., p. 105. 

3. Ibid., p. 116. 

4. Ibid., p. 160. 

5. Letters from Italy, li, 310. 

6. Ibid., II, 316, 317. For other details of cost of carriages, wages 
of servants, fuel, food, clothing, etc., with suggestion of places 
to shop, see ibid., 11, 317-23. 

7. "The price of food is less at Naples than at Paris or London, 
because there is more frugality, less commerce, and less money." 
De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, vi, 390. 

8. At Naples the general readiness, even in our day, to cheat 
friend or foe is only too painfully evident. Very significant is 
Mariana Starke's advice at the end of the eighteenth century: 
"Foreigners should not pay their own bills at Naples, if they 
amount to a large sum : for a receipt given in the common way 
is invalid; and the only means of being certain not to pay twice 
over, is to discharge every debt in bank-policies, writing upon 

438 



NOTES 

PAGE 

196. 8. the back of each policy (in Italian) the amount of the sum 
paid, and for why." Letters from Italy, 11, 328, 329. 

I95fc I. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 330, 331. With these prices it is 
interesting to compare those of half a century later: "The 
charges at the best hotels (of Naples) are generally as follows: 
— Breakfast of tea or coffee, with bread and butter, 3 pauls; 
with eggs, 5 pauls; with meat, 8 pauls. As there is no table 
d'hote at any of the hotels, a dinner in a private apartment will 
cost from 10 to 12 pauls; tea, 3 pauls." Coghlan, Hand- 
Book for Italy (1847), p. 340. 

2. Relatively low prices prevailed in general, even after the 
Napoleonic wars. "Our supper [at Parma] the first night, our 
breakfast, dinner, and coffee the next day, and coffee the fol- 
lowing morning, with lodging and fire, came to twenty-three 
francs. It would have cost more than double in England in 
the same circumstances." HazHtt, Journey, Works, ix, 201. 

3. Views Afoot, pp. 351, 352. 

4. IbU., p. 397. 

5. Ibid., p. 326. 

6. We shotild notice, however, the remark of Samuel Jackson 
Pratt: "I must lay it down as a first general principle that a 
Prussian and German landlord, if he possibly can, will over- 
reach you, not so much, I believe, from dishonesty, as from 
an almost innate idea of considering the word 'Englishman' 
synonymous with the word ' riches.' " Gleanings through Wales, 
Holland, and Westphalia, iii, 65. 

198. I. Journal, quoted in Diary, i, 58-59. 

2. Taylor, Views Afoot, p. 505. 

3. Riesbeck, Travels in Germany, p. 100. 

4. Cogan, The Rhine, i, 65, 66. For Cleves such prices were 
high! 

5. Letters from Italy, ll, 362. 

199. I. Essex, Journal of a Tour, etc., pp. 22, 23. 

2. A Description of Holland, pp. 206, 207. 

3. Gleanings through Wales, Holland, and Westphalia, in, 77. 

4. A Description of Holland, p. 210. 

201. I. See Stanley, Life of Dr. Thomas Arnold, u, 318. 

2. Travels, I, 382. 

3. Ibid., II, 147. 

202. I. "The usual gratuity to the servant who shews a palace is a 

Testone. " Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling 
through France, Italy, etc., i, 198. 

2. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, v, 176, 177. Cf. also De Brosses, 
Lettres sur I Italic, 11, 353. 

3. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 11, 303. 

4. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 63. 

203. I. Letters, v, 226. 

204. I. The Gentleman' s Guide, pp. 63, 64. 

2. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 616. 

3. Trevelyan, Early Life of Charles James Fox, p. 273. 

205. I. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 61. 

439 



NOTES 



PAGE 



205. 2. Travels, i, 99. 

3. Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey through France, p. 36. 

4. Ibid., Appendix, p. 3. 

CHAPTER X 

210. I. Stephen, Studies of a Biographer, iv, 275. 

2. Tour on the Continent, in, 217, 218. 

3. Page 84. 

4. Studies of a Biographer, iv, 275. 

5. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 11, 336. 

211. I. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, iv, 72, 106, 107; 

158-61. 

2. Letters, 11, 53. 

3. Ihid., II, 78. 

212. I. Ibid., I, 333. 

2. Tour of Holland, etc., p. 228. 

3. Letters, v, 319. 

213. I. Travels in France, p. 234. 

2. Ibid., p. 58. 

3. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 52. 

4. Letters concerning the Present State of the French Nation, p. 149. 

5. Travels, in, 323. 

214. I. Grand Tour, i, 289. 

213. I. In 1770 one could obtain board there for six hundred livres 
(twenty-five guineas) a year. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 25. 

2. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, il, 5. 

3. Cf. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 27. 

4. Ibid., IV, 28. 

5. Ibid., IV, 28. 

216. I. Pierre Clerget estimates the population in 1675 at 540,000, 

and in 1788, at 599,000. Annual Report of Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, 1912, p. 657. 

2. Page 534. 

3. Walpole, Letters, iv, 433; v, 323; ix, 511. 

217. I. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 66; Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 371; 

Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 64. 

2. (Jones) Journey to Paris (1776), l, 98. 

3. Letters, v, 34. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 33. 

218. I. Letters, iv, 407. 

2. See the list of descriptions of Paris in Babeau, Les Voyageurs 
en France, p. 94. Very convenient was the Almanach Parisien, 
"in two little pocket volumes," giving in alphabetical order a 
description of "all the public places, spectacles, amusements, 
together with all the trade and business of Paris." Trust- 
worthy shops with their prices were also enumerated. One 
could get pocket maps of the city and of the environs. Cf. 
(Jones) Journey to Paris, i, 99-101. 

3. Nugent suggests similar assignments for several days. Grand 
Tour, IV, 37. 

440 



NOTES 

PAGE 

2i8. 4. See Coryate, Crudities, i, 171. 

5. Evelyn thought it smelt "as if sulphur were mixed with the 
mud." Diary, i, 50. 

6. St. John, Letters from France, i, 36. 

7. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, pp. 249, 250. 

8. Young, Travels in France, p. 92; Smith, Tour on the Continent, 
III, 210. 

219. I. Travels in France, pp. 103, 104. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 

III, 210, makes the same complaints. 

2. "There will also be great impositions attempted upon you in 
the article of carriage, in your excursions to Versailles, and 
other places within the environs of Paris. The first unneces- 
sary piece of expence they will want to put you to is an addi- 
tional pair of horses. . . . You pay six livres to the King's 
coach office, for a permission to go to Versailles in your own 
carriage, which permit is good for twelve months." The 
Gentleman's Guide, p. 64. 

3. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 11, z^S. Yet Moore 
thought Paris poorly and partially lighted. View of Society 
and Manners in France, etc., p. 17. 

4. Fitzgerald, Life of Sterne, i, 339. 

5. Thierry, Almanach du Voyageur, p. 304. 

220. I. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 11, 300. 

2. Letters, iv, 435. 

3. Ihid. (1766), IV, 489. 

4. Ibid. Qune 20, 1 771), v, 307. 

5. Journey, Works, ix, 155. 

221. I. Carr, The Stranger in France, p. II4. 

2. Cf. Walpole, Letters, vi, 260. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 84, 85. 

4. Ihid., IV, 91, 97; Thierry, Almanach du Voyageur, pp. 122-26. 

5. Tovey, Gray and his Friends, p. 40. 

222. I. The Gentleman' s Guide, p. 210. 

2. A View of Paris (1701), p. 16. 

3. Letters to a Young Gentleman, p. 529. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 109. 

5. The Gentleman' s Guide, (1770) p. 52. 

223. I. Journey, Works, ix, 158. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 14. 

3. Thierry, Almanach du Voyageur, pp. 139-41. 

4. Grand Tour, iv, 14. 

5. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 67. 

224. I. Letters to a Young Gentleman, pp. 547-48. 

2. New Le-tters from an English Traveller, pp. 38, 39. 

225. I. Smollett is in this instance guilty of no exaggeration: The 

guide-book reminds the tourist: "Having settled now the article 
of eating and drinking, you are to equip yourself for your ex- 
cursions about the town; for which purpose, we need not men- 
tion that a French tailor and barber are absolutely requisite." 
Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 36. 
2. Travels, i, 97, 98. 

441 



NOTES 



PAGE 



225. 3. Ibid., I, 99. 

226. I. Ibid., I, no. 

2. Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, iv, p. iii. 

3. The Gentleman' s Guide, pp. 9, 10. 

227. I. Letters, vi, 48. 

2. Letters, v, 205. 

3. The imitation of English fashions continued in the early nine- 
teenth century. Lady Morgan comments on the practice of 
keeping a "stationary table in a comer of the saloon. This 
table universally exhibits an English tea equipage, designed 
equally for ornament and for use; and the silver tea urn and 
tea caddy are rarely omitted." France, i, 188. 

228. I. Letters, iv, 410. 

2. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, i, 290. 

3. Letters, viii, 390. 

4. Ibid., V, 160. 

5. Vol. Ill, 107. Cited by Lecky, History of England in the Eight- 
eenth Century, vi, 368, note. Lecky refers also to Walpole's 
letter to Mann, April 30, 1763. 

6. Babeau names Lalande, Grosley , La Condamine. Les Voyageurs 
en France, p. 212. 

229. I. Letters, iv, 396. 

2. Lady Morgan comments on the amazing unfamiliarity of the 
French Emigres with the English language and literature after 
a residence of twenty-five years in England. France, I, 152. 

3. Cf. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 199. 

4. A Tour in France and Italy, p. 39. 

5. Lady Knight's Letters, p. 181. 

6. Journey, Works, ix, 99. 

230. I. Smith, Tour on the Continent, I, 67, 68. 

2. Journey, Works, ix, 105. 

3. Page 172. 

4. See also Walpole's comments on the filthiness of French con- 
versation in high life. Letters, iv, 435, 441. 

5. Travels, i, 63. He gives (p. 64) some specimens of decidedly 
haut gout. 

6. Note, for example, this matter-of-fact, seventeenth-century 
comment: "Swearing and cursing, with the addition of obscene 
words, are customary in both sexes." Ray and Skippon, 
Travels through France, Harris's Collection of Voyages, 11, 724. 

7. Young, married, with a young family. 

8. Notes on a Journey through France, p. 49. 

9. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 188. Tourists in France very com- 
monly remark upon the primitive cabinets d'aisance ("temples 
of abomination," Young calls them, Travels in France, p. 307), 
and even the entire lack of them. 

231. I. Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey through France, p. 104. 

2. Travels in France, p. 307. 

3. Ibid., p. 307. 

4. De la Force, Description de la France, i, 306, 307; see also i, 
298, 299. 

442 



NOTES 



PAGE 



231. 5. Letters, iv, 286. 

232. I. Letters concerning the Present State of the French Nation, p. 148. 

2. France, i, 185. 

3. Ibid., I, 186. 

4. Carr, The Stranger in France, p. 257. 

233. I. Letters, i, 334. 

2. St. John, Letters from France, I, I. 

3. (Jones) Journey to Paris, i, 125. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 13. 

5. Letters (1765), iv, 423. 

6. Smollett observes the same thing in Provence. " Strangers are 
. . . made very welcome if they will engage in play, which is 
the sole occupation of the whole company." Travels, II, 240. 

7. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 13. 

234. I. Travels, 1, 107. 

2. A View of Paris, by a Gentleman (1701), p. 35. 

3. Travels, 11, 336. 

4. The Stranger in France, p. 252. 

5. Grand Tour, IV, 13. 

235. I. Letters, iv, 414, 

2. St. John, Letters from France, 11, 167. 

3. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 34. 

4. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, pp. 35-37. 

5. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 15. Cf. 
Hazlitt, Journey, Works, ix, 93. 

6. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 175, 

236. I. Ibid., p. 15. 

2. Travels in France, p. 51. 

3. Ibid., p. 113. 

237. I. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, li, 309, 310. 

2. Letters, i, 18. 

3. Letters concerning the Present State of the French Nation, p. 156. 

4. Tour of Holland, etc., p. 188. 

5. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 38. 

6. Grand Tour, iv, 36, 37. 

7. Introduction d la Description de la France, i, 278, 279. 

239. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 144, 145. 

2. Ibid., IV, 179. 

3. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 26. 

4. Page 135. 

240. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 157, 158. 

2. Letters (ed. Gosse), 11, 35. 

3. Diary, I, 82. 

4. Travels, i, 28. 

5. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 141. 

241. I. De la Force, Nouvelle Description de la France, iv, 305. 

2. Clenche, A Tour in France and Italy, p. 20. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 183. 

242. I. A Tour in France and Italy, p. 19. 

2. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 11, 143. 

3. Ibid., II, 136. 

443 



NOTES 

PAGE 

242. 4. The Gentleman' s Guide (1770), p. 147. 

5. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, iv, 125, 

6. All through the eighteenth century till 1 789 the Maison Carrie 
was used as a church. Cf. Cook, Old Provence, I, 217. 

243. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 249. 

2. Travels in France, p. 50. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 250. 

4. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 11, 192. 

5. Travels, 1, 159. 

6. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, ll, 178, 179. 

244. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 186. 

2. Page 151. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, iv, 190. 

4. The Gentleman's Guide, p. 162. 

5. Travels in France, p. 265. 

245. I. Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 14. 

2. Tour on the Continent, i, 212. 

3. Travels in France, p. 272. 

4. Dupaty, Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 18. 

246. I. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 239. 
2. Ibid., pp. 92, 93. 

247. I. A Tour in France and Italy, pp. 10, 11. 

2. Ihid. 

3. Diary, i, 76. 

4. Grand Tour, iv, 224, 225. 

248. I. Grand Tour, iv, 223. 

2. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, ll, 232. 

3. Clcnche, A Tour in France and Italy, p. 16. 

4. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 11, 118. 

249. I. Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 300. 

2. Page 184. 

3. Letters, p. 10. 

4. Birkbeck, Notes on a Journey through France, p. 74. , 

250. I. Grand Tour, iv, 252, 253. 

2. Travels, i, 170. 

3. Cross, Life of Sterne, p. 318. 

4. Page 170. 

5. Tovey, Gray and his Friends, p. 42. 

251. I. Grand Tour, iv, 219. 

2. Ibid., IV, 220, 221. 

3. Ibid., IV, 221, 222. 

4. Ibid., IV, 233-36. 

5. Ibid., IV, 228. 

252. I. Such a case is cited by Walpole in a letter to Mann (1760): 

"Young Mr. Pitt, nephew of the Pitt, is setting out for Lisbon 
with Lord Kinnoul, and will proceed through Granada to Italy, 
with his friend Lord Strathmore." Letters, iii, 286. See also 
the end of Chapter II, ante. 
2. Letters from an English Traveller, p. 153, 154. 

253. I. Chevalier de Bourgoanne, Travels in Spain, p. 302; in Pinker- 

ton's Voyages and Travels, Vol. v. 

444 



NOTES 



PAGE 



253. 2. Wyndham, Travels through Europe, iv, 325. 

254. I. Jbid., IV, 325, 326. 

2. See his Journey through Spain in the Years 1786, 1787, London, 
1791- 

3. Chevalier de Bourgoanne, Travels in Spain, pp. 300, 301. 

CHAPTER XI 

255. I. Voisenon compares Cauterets, with its magnificent mountains, 

to hell — except that one dies of cold there. Cf. Babeau, Les 
Voyageurs en France, p. 311. 

2. The poet Wordsworth and his friend Jones were perhaps the 
first English university students to make a vacation walking 
tour in Switzerland (1790) for pleasure. 

3. On the eighteenth-century dislike of mountains, see Reynolds, 
Nature in English Poetry, pp. 7-15. 

256. I. New Voyage to Italy, i\ 158. 

2. Ibid., ii2, 480. 

3. Northleigh, Travels through France, in Harris's Collection of 
Voyages, n, 736. 

257. I. St. John, Letters from France (1787), 11, 217, 218. 

2. Travels, i, 507. 

3. Several Years' Travels, etc. (1702), p. 99. 

4. Landscape in Poetry, p. 180. 

5. Coxe was at Bormio in 1779 and paid "several visits to the 
principal families of the town, who consider an Englishman in 
their country as a kind of phaenomenon, and showed me every 
attention and civiUty in their power." Travels in Switzerland, 
p. 916. 

6. We find it hard to realize how late is the fashion of climbing 
mountains as a pastime. The English Alpine Club was not 
founded until 1858. With very rare exceptions the men who 
did difficult mountain climbing were not Englishmen, although 
in 1 741 Richard Pococke and WiUiam Windham were pioneers 
in exploring the Mer de Glace at Chamonix. See Dictionary of 
National Biography, s.v. 

258. I. "I have not been able to find any account of a visit to Zermatt 

or its immediate neighborhood by a traveller between the Eng- 
lish party of 1800 and another of 1 82 1." Coolidge, Swiss Travel 
and Swiss Guide-books, p. 273. 

2. Travels in Switzerland, p. 756. 

3. Starke, Letters from Italy, I, 6. 

4. A veiled allusion to Murray's Hand-Book. 

5. Coghlan, Hand-Book for Italy, p. 5. 

6. It is only just to add that in the other parts of the country 
the Swiss inns had an excellent reputation, even in the eight- 
eenth century. "A traveller cannot but be pleased with the 
inns on the road throughout all Switzerland, meeting every- 
where with trout, carp, beef, veal, fowls, pigeons, butter, cheese, 
apples, peaches, turnips, sugar, bisket, together with good wine, 
and all at a very reasonable price, especially if compared to the 

445 



NOTES 

PAGE 

258. 6. reckonings in Swabia, Tirol, and Bavaria." Keysler, Travels, 

I, 179- 

On the other hand, Burnet's praise of the mountain inns is 
probably to be taken with some hesitation — at least in the 
eighteenth century. "The inns upon the mountains are very 
good, and there is always to be had, besides good bread and 
wine, great quantity of game and venison, according to the 
season of the year; good trouts, very good chambers, and beds 
after the manner of the country." Travels, p. 252 (ed. 1737). 

7. Sharp, Letters from Italy (1766), p. 296. 

8. Travels, i, 221. 

259. I. Burnet's comparison of France with Switzerland, to the disad- 

vantage of the former, is worth noting: "Every where in France, 
even in the best cities, there are swarms of beggars, and yet 
scarce any to be seen throughout all Switzerland. The houses 
of the peasants, or country-people, in France are extremely 
mean, and in them no other furniture to be found besides poor 
nasty beds, straw chairs, and plates and dishes of wood and 
earth. In Switzerland, the peasants have their houses furnished 
with good feather-beds, good chairs, and other household stuflE 
for their convenience as well as their necessity; their windows 
are all of glass, always kept mended and whole, and their linen 
very neat and white as weU for their bedding as their tables." 
Travels, p. 251 (ed. 1737). 
2. Travels in Switzerland, p. 749. 

260. I. Ibid., p. 645. 

2. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 125. 

3. Ihid., p. 154. 

4. See the account in his View of Society and Manners in France, 
etc., pp. 96/. 

5. "The great rush of English tourists came when the Continent 
was reopened after the battle of Waterloo." Coolidge, Swiss 
Travel and Swiss Cuide-Books, p. 60. 

261. I. For details concerning books on Switzerland I must refer the 

reader to Coolidge's invaluable Swiss Travel and Swiss Cuide- 
Books, and Peyer's Ceschichte des Reisens ifi der Schweiz, Basel, 
1885. 

2. In striking contrast with these places was Constance. Note 
Coxe's remarks in July, 1776: "A dead stillness reigns through- 
out ; grass grows in the principal streets ; in a word, it wears the 
melancholy aspect of being almost totally deserted, and scarcely 
contains three thousand inhabitants," Travels in Switzerland, 
p. 645. 

3. Coxe, Travels in Switzerland, p. 848. 

4. Ibid., p. 666. 

5. Wyndham, Travels, l, 483. 

6. Burnet found enough English there to give him a congregation 
of twelve or fourteen persons. 

7. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, i^, 576. 

262. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, 182. 

2. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 79. 
446 



NOTES 

PAGE 

262. 2. Some Englishmen objected to Geneva that young men picked 

up skepticism along with their French. Cf. Eustace, Classical 
Tour in Italy, iv, 90. 

3. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 81. 

4. "Save the mule tracks through the Via Mala (1473, bridges 
built 1738-39), and the Urner Loch near Andermatt (pierced 
1707), as well as that over the Gemmi (constructed by Tyrolese 
workmen 1736-41), all the great Alpine roads in Switzerland 
have been constructed since 1800." Coolidge, Swiss Travel 
and Swiss Guide-Books, p. 113. 

263. I. Travels, i, 221. 

264. I. Diary, i, 239, 240. 
2. Travels, li, 215, 216. 

265. I. Ibid., II, 220. 

2. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, i, 29. 

3. Gray, Letters, 11, 39, 40. 

. 4, The crossing of the Alps in winter was greatly dreaded. See 
Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, in, 212, 226. See 
also ibid., 11, 239^. 

5. See, for example, Clenche, A Tour in France and Italy, p. 24; 
Keysler, Travels, i, 22,1 ff.; Earl of Cork and Orrery, Letters 
from Italy, pp. 38-41. 

6. A seat, which is made of bark and ropes twisted together, is 
fastened to two poles, and carried like a sedan, with broad 
leather straps. Keysler, Travels, i, 234. 

7. Sharp, Letters from Italy, pp. 290, 291. See the whole account, 
pp. 290-95. In the sixteenth century Montaigne crossed Mont 
Cenis, being conducted by eight porters, in relays of four. He 
descended on a sledge (traineau). 

266. I. Young, Travels in France, pp. 276, 277. 

2. Manners and Customs of Italy, 11, 314. De La Lande, Voyage en 
Italic, 1, 26, says that the difficulties have been much exagger- 
ated, but that the traveler must sometimes wait five or six 
days on account of snow or avalanches (i, 22); even North- 
leigh, Travels through France (Harris's Collection of Voyages, 11, 
736) admits: "The passage of Mount Cenis, notwithstanding 
its height, is not very unpleasant." 

3. At aU events, it was not looked upon as a pleasure trip. Writ- 
ing to Selwyn from Nice in December of 1767, the Earl of 
Carlisle says: "The journey from hence to Turin will, I fear, 
be very bad: the Alps, I believe, in these parts, are inaccessible 
in a carriage. Riding upon a mule from hence to Genoa will 
not be attended with great pleasure, and the going in an open 
boat, with the prospect of being very cold and very sick at 
least for four and twenty hours, and perhaps for four days, 
promises little more comfort than your winter journey from 
Paris last Christmas. ... I find I am to be carried in a sedan- 
chair two days' journey on my way to Turin, which will be 
rather tiresome." Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 
II, 205, 206. 

267. I. Grand Tour, iii, 431. 

447 



NOTES 

PAGE 

267. 2. Travels, 11, 4. 

3. Gray, Letters, li, 51. 

4. Letters, II, 36. 

268. I. Letter to Selwyn in Jesse's George Selwyn and his Contemporaries 

II, 283, 284. 

CHAPTER XII 

269. I. In his famous New Voyage to Italy, i", 662, Misson remarks that 

"a thousand travellers have wrote of it," and asks: "What can 
these new relations tell us, that has not been already an hun- 
dred times repeated?" See also his comments on Rome, ibid., 
ii2, I. 
2. Northall, Travels through Italy, p. ii. 

270. I. Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England, pp. 276, 277. 
2. A Description of Holland, pp. 201, 202. 

271. I. New Voyage to Italy, i\ xxxv. 

2. Grand Tour, in, 19, 36. 

3. Travels through Italy, p. i. 

272. I. Classical Tour in Italy, iv, 121. 
2. Grand Tour, iii, 17. 

274. I. Manners and Customs of Italy, ll, 329, 330. 

2. Letters, i, 31. 

3. Journey, Works, ix, 290. 

275. I. iiS 589. 

2. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i. Preface, p. iv. 

3. It is interesting to note that Goethe on his Italian tour spent a 
few weeks in Sicily, visiting Palermo, Segesta, Alcamo, Castel- 
vetrano, Girgenti, Castro Giovanni, Catania, Taormina, Mes- 
sina, and some other places. 

276. I. In the first third of the century Breval protests against the 

neglect of Vol terra by English tourists: "Vol terra . . . deserves 
a Visit much better than Mr. Addison's S. Marino; and it is 
surprising that so few of our Countrymen will be at the Pains 
of a Journey, which as I have been assured by two or three 
of my Acquaintance, who undertook it, would requite the 
Trouble abundantly." Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 1, 
132. Nugent, we may note, gives a page or more to Vol terra. 
Grand Tour, iii, 356, 357. 

2. Manners and Customs of Italy, ll, 270, 271. 

3. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, vii, 326. 

4. Travels, 11, 172. 

277. I. Grand Tour, iii, 356-62. 

2. Ibid., Ill, 226-30. 

3. Manners and Customs of Italy, i, 126. 

4. Of Como he says only: "Le lac de Come tire son nom d'une 
petite ville situee a 8 lieues au nord de Milan, que fut la patrie 
de Pline, le jeune neveu matemel de Pline le naturaliste." 
Voyage en Italie, i, 402. 

5. Ibid., I, 401, 402. 

278. I. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 363-405, gives a list of routes and 

448 



NOTES 

PAGE 

278. I. posts, with running comments on the inns, etc., etc. See also 

Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, Table of Contents, and Index. 

2. New Voyage to Italy, f, 584. 

3. Nugent outlines four routes between Venice and Genoa {Grand 
Tour, III, 120-22). I omit minor details: — 

I. Venice, Padua, Este, Mantua, Parma, Varese, Rapallo, 

Genoa, a distance of 211 miles. 
II. Venice, Padua, Este, Mantua, Cremona, Milan, Pavia, 
Tortona, Genoa, 308 miles. 

III. Venice, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Desenzano, Peschiera, 

Brescia, Bergamo, Milan (197 miles). Thence by 
route II to Genoa. 

IV. Same as III to Brescia. Thence by Lodi, Pavia, Tor- 

tona to Genoa. 
. 4. The route from Leghorn to Florence ran through Pisa, Lucca, 
and Pistoia, a distance of sixty-four miles. Nugent, Grand Tour, 
ni, 365- 

279. I. One who went from Venice to Rome by this route passed 

through Padua, Rovigo, Ferrara, Bologna, Pietra Mala, Giogo, 
Florence, — a journey of one hundred and seventy-one miles 
additional. Ibid., lii, 303, 304. 

2. " From Ancona to Loretto the country is as fine as any in Italy, 
but the road is exceedingly bad." Ibid., iii, 208, 

3. See Ibid., ill, 186, 187. 

4. "From Perugia you may go to Rome by the way of Todi . . . 
[and] Castel Todino, and returning into the Via Flaminia, you 
arrive at Nami. But this road is not much frequented." Ibid., 
in, 229. 

5. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., i, 149-89. 

281. I. Nugent's route between Turin and Rome is very similar to 
Keysler's. With minor omissions, it includes Turin, Asti, 
Alessandria, Genoa, Rapallo, Sestri, Massa di Carrara, Pisa, 
Siena, Viterbo. Nugent gives the distance from Turin to 
Rome as three hundred and sixty -eight miles. Grand Tour, iii, 
416, 417. 

2. Keysler, Travels, ill, 250. 

3. Ibid., Ill, 206. 

4. Nugent outlines a good number of other routes in Italy, but 
he adds comparatively little of importance for our purpose. 

283. I. Classical Tour in Italy, i, 37-41. 

284. I. Letters from Italy, p. 31. 

2. Letters, i, 30. 

3. Letters from Italy, p. 279. 

4. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, I, 179. 

285. I. New Voyage to Italy, ii^, 384. 

2. Grand Tour, ill, 170. 

3. But the streets were not lighted at night. "Every coach 
and every chair is obliged to appear with a white flambeau,'' 
says the Eari of Cork and Orrery in his Letters from Italy, p, 
55. 

449 



NOTES 

PAGE 

285. 4. Grand Tour, in, 172. 

5. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 11, 280. 

6. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, v, 162, says of the Italian women 
of rank, that as a rule they dressed in the French fashion, but 
that their faces were unrouged. 

7. Tour on the Continent, iii, 131. 

8. Nugent remarks upon the route from Viareggio: " Here you may 
take a felucca for Genoa, if the weather happens to be favorable, 
by which means you avoid the wretched roads through the 
mountains of Genoa." Grand Tour, iii, 418. 

286. I. Ibid., Ill, 140. 

2. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, I, 189. 

3. Lettres sur V Italie (1785), p. 51. 

4. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, l, 198. 

5. Lettres sur I' Italie, p. 24. 

6. Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, I, 60. 

7. Cf. De Brosscs, Lettres sur V Italie, l, 73. 

287. I. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, l, 188. 

2. Lady Knight's Letters, pp. 144, 149. 

3. Voyage en Italie, i, 376. 

4. Ibid., I, 392. 

5. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 566. 

6. Baretti, Manners and Customs of Italy, ll, 132. 

288. I. Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 127. 

2. Especially famous were the excellent carriages made there, far 
lighter than the cumbrous vehicles of France and England; and 
at MUan many strangers procured an outfit for traveling in 
Italy. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, i, 390. 

289. I. Travels, pp. 86, 88. 

2. Lettres sur I'ltalie, ill, 380, 381. 

290. I. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, 1, 205, 206. 

2. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, in, 310. 

3. Voyage en Italie, viii, 271. 

291. 1. De Drosses, Lettres sur V Italie, i, 217. 

2. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, viii, i. 

3. Tivaroni notes that in the public accounts of 1773 military ex- 
penses amount to more than a million ducats, but the expenses 
for education do not appear at all, those for public works are 
scarcely hinted at. Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 

37. 

4. Ibid., I, 28-30. 

5. Ibid., I, 60. 

6. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, vm, 187. 

7. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, I, 85. 

8. Keysler, Travels, iv, 27. 

9. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, viil, 171. 

292. I. Letters from Italy, p. 26. 

2. Voyage en Italie, viii, 172, 179. 

3. Keysler, Travels, iv, 27. 

4. Ibid., IV, 12. 

5. Breval, Remarks upon Several Parts oj Europe, l, 237; De 

450 



NOTES 

PAGE 

292. 5. Brosses, Lettres sur Vltalie, i, 223, 242 ; Misson, New Voyage to 

Italy, i^, 477. 

6. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, viii, 171. Venetians, he adds, 
rarely entertain at meals, but when they do strangers are re- 
ceived as well as natives (174). 

7. Cf. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, I, 49. 

8. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, viii, 55. 

9. "My Lord Carlisle told me that next to Rome the best place 
to stay in Italy is, without contradiction, Venice." Lady Mary 
Wortley Montagu, Letters, 11, 54. 

293. I. Ibid., II, 34. 

2. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 11, 445. 

3. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, l, 149, 155. 

4. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, viii, 207. 

5. Keysler, Travels, iv, 31. 

6. Even Baretti calls this "a custom no less nasty than infamous." 
Manners and Customs of Italy, i, 58. See also some moving 
comments by Sharp, Letters from Italy, pp. 95, 96, 

294. I. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, I, 28. 

2. "No stranger to this place can conceive the torments we suf- 
fered every day and night from these insects." Sharp, Letters 
from Italy, p. 30. 

3. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 31; Smith, 
Tour on the Continent, 11, 385. 

4. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, ill, 317, 318. 

5. Grand Tour, in, 48. 

6. Travels, I, 81. See also Mrs. Piozzi, Journey, etc., i, 173. 

7. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 90. 

8. The general reputation of the city is sufficiently indicated by 
the proverb: "Venezia S il paradise de' frati e delle putane.'' 

395. I. Grand Tour, in, 87, 88. 

2. Manners and Customs of Italy, I, 90. 

3. Travels through Italy, p. 444. 

4. De Brosses, Lettres sur I Italie, I, 223, 

5. Crudities, i, 314; cf. also i, 3. 

296. I. Ibid., I, 347. 

2. Diary, 1, 207. 

3. Travels, p. 107. 

4. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., i, 50. 

5. Voyage en Italie, viii, 15. 

6. Lettres sur Vltalie, i, 247. 
. 7. Ibid., I, 249. 

297. I. Tour on the Continent, 11, 386. 

2. Ibid., II, 388. 

3. Classical Tour in Italy, i, 169. 

4. Travels through Italy, pp. 433, 434. 

5. Ibid., p. 434. 

6. Vol. II, 196, 199. 

7. Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, i, 168. 

298. I. View of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 41, 42. 



NOTES 



PAGE 



298. 2. The carnival began always the day after Christmas, but the 

spectacles of all sorts opened on the first Sunday in October. 
To these one always went masked. De La Lande, Voyage en 
Italic, VIII, 192-94. 

299. I. Goethe remarks in his Italienische Reise (October 16, 1786): 

"Zum erstenmal tjberfallt mich eine Art von Unlust in dieser 
grossen und schonen, flachgelegenen, entvolkerten Stadt." 

2. New Voyage to Italy, i\ 315. 

3. Travels, i, 236. 

4. Starke, Letters from Italy, 1, 193. 

5. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, vii, 454. 

6. Keysler, Travels, iii, 247. 

7. View of Society and Manners in Italy, 1, 220. 

8. Lettres sur Vltalie, 11, 4. 

9. Letters from Italy, 11, 191, 192. 

300. I. Northall, Travels through Italy, p. 412. 

2. De Brosses, Lettres sur Vltalie, i, 343. 

3. Ihid., I, 346. 

4. Bayard Taylor, as late as 1845, speaks of "the air of poetry 
which still lingers in its sUent streets." Views Afoot, p. 381. 

5. More than double that number lived in the suburbs. Tivaroni, 
Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, 1, 231. Burnet, 
Travels, p. 144, estimated the population at fifty thousand in 
the seventeenth century. 

301. I. Evelyn comments upon the "wicker bottles dangling even 

over the chief entrance" into the Pitti Palace, and "serving 
for a vintner's bush." Diary, i, 97. 

2. Travels, 11, 75. 

3. "The people complain much of being oppressed with taxes; 
for everything bought in the town, even a book, is taxed going 
out as well as coming in: and it is said the grand duke draws 
from this city about 30,000 ducats a month." Northall, 
Travels through Italy, p. 38. 

4. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 257. 

5. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 296. 

6. Ibid., II, 294. 

7. Ibid., II, 297. She says that the water of Florence was "un- 
wholesome," except that "from Fiesole, supplying fountains 
by Sa. Croce and Palazzo Pitti." Ibid., u, 300. 

302. I. Ibid., II, 299. 

2. Horace Walpole in a letter to Mann (1745) incidentally remarks 
that Lady O. has "taken a house at Florence for three years." 
Letters, i, 365. 

3. Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 142. 

4. Letters, i, 39. 

5. Ibid., V, 141. 

6. Letters from Italy, p. 247. 

7. In 1767, says Tivaroni, the streets were not yet Ugh ted at night. 
Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 251. 

303. I. Catchpenny tricks were not unknown in those days. Keysler 

mentions a loadstone in the Pitti Palace weighing about five 

452 



NOTES 

PAGE 

303. 1. thousand pounds, which served as an excuse for a gratuity: 

"The Swiss guards here, upon seeing any foreigners approach- 
ing, immediately rub their halbards on this loadstone, and 
afterwards hold them up with a range of keys hanging to them 
by magnetism. This artifice for getting a little money is 
excessively mean." Travels, 11, 31, 

2. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, 11, 208. 

3. View of Society and Manners in Italy, in, 147. 

4. Cf. also Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, I, 226. 

5. Travels through Italy, p. 103. 

304. I. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, ll, 361. 

2. Wyndham, Travels, i, 207. 

3. New Voyage to Italy, 11', 293. 

4. Keysler, Travels, 11, 78. 

5. Dupaty in 1785 says that the leisure of the nobility at Florence 
is taken up with the opera, devotion, and cicisbeism. Lettres 
sur I' Italie, p. 131. 

6. De Brosses, Lettres sur V Italie, 11, 53. 

305. I. Wright, Some Observations made in travelling through France, 

Italy, etc., 11, 428. 

2. Letters, 11, 17. 

3. "The musical opera at Florence is very good, though the ad- 
mission price is so low as three pauls, not quite eighteen pence." 
Smith, Tour on the Continent, l, 334. 

306. I. In Walpole's Letters, i, 56. 

2. Ihid., I, 59. 

3. Ibid., IX, 324. 

4. Gray's Letters, 11, 103. 

5. Letters, ix, 348. 

6. Ibid., IX, 348. 

307. I. Travels through Italy, p. 22. 
2. Keysler, Travels, i, 479. 

308. I. Letters from Italy, p. 91. 

2. Diary, i, 93. 

3. Lettres sur V Italie, li, 75. 

4. A Tour in France and Italy, p. 40. 

5. Letters from Italy, p. 94. 

6. Letters from Italy, i, 198. 

309. I. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 554. 

2. Travels, i, 503. 

3. "It is deemed unwholesome to travel from Florence, through 
Siena, to Rome, from the time when the great heats commence 
tUl after the autumnal rains have fallen." Starke, Letters 
from Italy, n, 379. 

4. Here was a characteristic city regulation. "On entering Siena 
you leave the keys of your trunk at the gate, and pay one livre, 
for which they are brought to the opposite gate, and delivered 
up when you pass through." Ibid., 11, 377. 

5. Ibid., I, 319. 

6. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, 11, 609. 

7. Grand Tour, ill, 348. Elsewhere Nugent says: "At Rome 

453 



NOTES 

PAGE 

309. 7. they are confounded by the multitude of strangers, with whom 

they are daily obhged to converse." Ibid., iii, 26. 
8. Voyage en Italie, 11, 571. 

310. I. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 130. 

2. Bromley, Several Years' Travels, etc., p. 119. 

3. Travels, 11, 81. 

4. De Brosses, Lettres sur V Italie, 11, 88. 

5. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 379, 382. 

6. Ihid., n, 378. 

7. Wright, Sojne Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., i, 27, 28. 

311. I. Letters from Italy, p. 49. 

2. Letters, 11, 224. 

3. Lettres sur V Italie, 11, 361, 364. 

4. Letters, p. 46. 

5. Ibid., p. 53. 

6. Ibid., p. 171. 

7. Travels, in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 11, 680. 

8. Smith, Tour on the Continent, i, 357. 
313. I. Letters from Italy, p. 218. 

2. "You will see here noblemen of the first rank, both secular 
and ecclesiastic, who, upon hearing a traveller at their gate 
desirous of seeing the curiosities of their palaces will take 
pleasure in showing them themselves; and, if they happen to 
be busy, order their domestics to do it for them, leaving their 
cabinets to give strangers liberty to satisfy their curiosity." 
Nugent, Grand Tour, iii, 289, 290. 

3. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, \, 147. 

4. Letters from Italy, p. 132. 

5. Tour on the Continent, 11, 290. 

6. Lettres sur V Italie, iii, 68. 

7. Keysler, Travels, 11, 147; De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, V, 132. 

8. Eustace, Classical Tour in Italy, iii, 469/. 
313. I. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, v, 171. 

2. Ibid., V, 175. 

3. Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, I, 299. 

4. For a sweeping denunciation, in Ruskin's fashion, of nearly 
everything at Rome, see his letter to Charles Eliot Norton, 
December 28, 1856. Cook's Life of Ruskin, i, 470. 

5. "I suppose, upon the whole, Rome is the chastest city in 
Europe, there being very few public women (none for a gentle- 
man), hardly any kept mistresses, and in comparison of all 
other Italian towns, even their cicisbeos are said, by some, to 
be innocent." Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 211. 

6. Travels through Italy, pp. 126, 127. 

7. The poet Keats naturally took lodgings here in 1820 during 
his stay in Rome. Lord Byron occupied a house in the Piazza 
di Spagna facing Keats's house. 

8. In the Via de' Condotti, which leads into the Piazza di Spagna, 
were several hotels garnis where, as De La Lande, Voyage en 
Italie, IV, 18, tells us, strangers lodged. 

454 



NOTES 

PAGE 

313. 9. "Hitherto the quarters about the Quirinal and Trinity del 

Monte have been accounted the most healthy parts of Rome, 
and foreigners generally choose to lodge there on that account; 
as also because most of the coffee-houses and taverns are about 
the Piazza di Spagna, near this part of the city." Keysler, 
Travels, 11, 131. 

314. I. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 295. 

2. Smollett writes Colla. 

3. Travels, 11, 88. 

4. Travels through Italy, p. 126. 

5. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic (1765), iii, 3; Dupaty, Lettres 
sur ritalie, p. 282. 

6. Travels, in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 11, 679. 

315. I. Lettres sur l' Italic, iii, 67. 

2. Manners and Customs of Italy, 11, 89, 

316. I. Autobiography, 11, 403 (Bohn). 

2. Letters from Italy, i, 335. 

3. De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, v, 220. 

4. Lettres sur V Italic, p. 296. 

5. See the author's paper on "Italy in English Poetry," in Publi- 
cations of Modern Language Association, xxiii, 421-70. 

317. I. Letters from Italy, pp. 50, 51. 

2. Journey, Works, ix, 256-57. 

3. Lettres sur V Italic, 11, 245. 

318. I. Travels, in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, 11, 684. 

2. Smith, Tour on the Continent, li, 277. 

3. Keysler, Travels, 11, 140. 

4. Smith, Tour on the Continent, n, 38. 

5. "As it is necessary in Venice to avoid discoursing of policy, so 
in Rome one must forbear disputes about religion, and then 
all is safe enough." Northall, Travels through Italy, p. 364. 

6. The sort of comment that might have given offense if uttered 
aloud is illustrated in the following: "We might have seen 
many other raree shews of this kind at Rome, where there are 
thousands of absurd Miracles, and other fopperies." A Short 
Account of a Late Journey to Tuscany, Rome, etc. (1741), p. 84. 

7. Travels through Italy, p. 376. 

8. Garibaldi's Defence of the Roman Republic, p. 234. 

319. I. Keysler, Travels, 11, 139. See also Burnet's Travels, p. 201. 

2. Garibaldis Defence of the Roman Republic, p. 57. 

3. Diary, i, 185. 

4. Vievu of Society and Manners in Italy, n, 162, 163. 

5. Ibid., II, 158. 

6. For a description of the brilliancy of the Papal pomp in the 
eighteenth century, see Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgi- 
mento Italiano, i, 278-81, and especially, I, 304-09. 

7. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, v, 9. 

8. Ibid., v, 194. 

320. I. Cf. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 11, 51. 

2. View of Society and Manners in Italy, 11, 182/. 

3. Tivaroni, Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 281. 

455 



NOTES 

PAGE 

320. 4. Voyage en Italic, v, 130. 
5. Ibid., V, 164. 

321. I. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 53. 
2. Voyage en Italic, iv, 314, 315. 

322. I. Harris, Collection of Voyages and Travels, 11, 693. 

2. Voyage en Italic, v, 222. 

3. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, 11, 23. 

4. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, v?, 401. 

5. Dupaty, Lettres sur l' Italic, p. 306. 

6. Travels, 11, 162. 

7. Keysler, Travels, 11, 350. 

8. New Voyage to Italy, 1^, 535. 

9. Keysler gives a list of two hundred and twenty-five buildings, 
monuments, villas, gardens, etc., to be seen at Rome. Travels, 

II, 467-74- 

10. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 567-82. See also Moore, View of 
Society and Manners in Italy, 11, 108. 

11. New Voyage to Italy, ii^, 535. See also Nugent, Grand Tour, 

III, 42. 

12. View of Society and Manners in Italy, 11, 105. 

323. I. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, ll, 307, 308. 

2. Cf. Misson, New Voyage to Italy, 1^, 534. 

3. Northall, Travels through Italy, pp. 127, 128. 

324. I. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 95. Cf. ibid., 

p. 91. 

2. Duclos, Voyage en Italic, in CEuvrcs Completes, ix, 190, 191. 

3. Smith found such a book useful. "Magnagni's guide-book," 
says he, "easily directed us to any particular object which we 
might be disposed to examine." Tour on the Continent, i, 359. 

4. Travels through Italy, p. 128. 

5. Grand Tour, in, 42. 

325. I. The road was not always entirely secure. In commenting on 

Torre, between Rome and Albano, Mariana Starke advises 
the tourist: "Take especial care that nothing be stolen from 
without-side of your carriage at this place." Letters from 
Italy, 11, 388. 
2. Concerning Capua Mariana Starke observes: "If yon have a 
servant on horseback, let him go before to get your passport 
examined and signed, otherwise you may be kept here an 
hour." Ibid., 11, 391. 

326. I. Tivaroni says that foreigners brought to Naples eight million 

ducats a year. Storia Critica del Risorgimento Italiano, i, 338. 

2. Some Observations made in Travelling through France, Italy, etc., 

I, 149. 

3. Grand Tour, i, 406. 

4. View of Society and Manners in Italy, ll, 214. 

5. Letters from Italy, ll, 68. 

327. I. Diary i, 157. 

2. Ibid., I, 168. 

3. Travels through Italy, p. 219. 

4. Ibid., p. 196. 

456 



NOTES 

PAGE 

327. 5- Ibid., p. 191. 

6. For example, Bromley, Several Years' Travels, etc., p. 140; 
Wright, Some Observations, made in Travelling through Frajice, 
Italy, etc., i, 149. 

7. De La Lande prefers the Corso at Rome, but Dr. Moore does 
not. 

8. De Brosses, Lettres sur I'ltalie, u, 134, 145. 

9. Autobiography, 11, 433 (Bohn). 

328. I. Keysler, Travels, iii, 40; De La Lande, Voyage en Italic, vi, 

332. 

2. Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 395. 

3. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 11, 77. 

4. Moore, View of Society and Manners in Italy, ill, 113. 

5. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 106. 

6. Diary, i, 156. 

7. Sharp, Letters from Italy, p. 145. 

8. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 92. 

329. I. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, II, 299. 

2. Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 372. 

3. Smith, Tour on the Continent, 11, 97. 

4. "We hired a carriage for the whole day, took a cold dinner, 
bread, wine, knives, forks, and glasses, and set out at seven 
in the morning for Pompeii, bargaining, however, with our 
Voiturin to stop two or three hours at Portici on our return." 
Letters from Italy, 11, 97. 

5. Ibid., II, 109. 

330. I. Letters from Italy, p. 109. 

2. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, vi, 339. 

3. Letters from Italy, p. no. 

4. Ibid., p. 132. 

5. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, vi, 373. 

331. I. Letters from Italy, p. 76. 

2. Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 391. 

3. The tariff was about nine cents an hour. But those who did 
not bargain beforehand often paid several times as much. 

4. De La Lande, Voyage en Italie, vi, 338. 

5. Dupaty, Lettres sur I'ltalie, p. 391. 

6. Trevelyan, Early Life of Charles James Fox, p. 269. 

332. I. New Voyage to Italy, i^, 618. 

2. Travels, iii, 205. 

3. Vietv of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 335. 

333. I. Manners and Customs of Italy, i, 16. See also Mrs. Piozzi, 

Travels, 11, 171. 

2. Travels, in Harris's Collection of Voyages and Travels, ll, 683. 

3. Grand Tour, iii, 192. 

4. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 184. 

334. 1. View of Society and Manners in Italy, i, 223. 



457 



NOTES 



CHAPTER XIII 

PAGE 

335. I. For the meaning of the term "Germany" in the eighteenth 

century, see Chapter II, ante. 

336. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, ill, 423. 

2. Ibid., Ill, 43, 44, 97. 

3. Ibid., Ill, 114. 

4. Keysler, Travels, iv, 117, 

5. Grand Tour, iii, 114, 115. Needless to say, the German names 
that offer any difficulty are rarely spelled with accuracy in 
Nugent's book. We find "Judenberg" for "Judenburg," 
" Knittelfield " for "Eaiittelfeld," "Laubach" for "Laibach," 
and so on. 

337. I. Letters, i, 202. 

338. I. Travels throiigh Austria, Bohemia, etc., in Harris's Collection 

of Voyages and Travels, 11, 759. 

2. Grand Tour, 11, 48. 

3. "The apparel of the Germans in general, particularly their 
caps, coats, gloves and boots, is lined with fur." Ibid., 11, 43. 

"All orders and degrees of persons in Augusburg are dis- 
tinguished by their proper habit. The women's dresses are 
many, very odd and uncommon, but some of them extremely 
pretty." Ibid., 11, 335. 

340. I. A brilliant specimen is the following: "I went to the Sheime 

Brune, [Schonbrunn] so called in the German tongue, or in the 
Italian la bella Fontana.'* Bromley, Several Years' Travels, etc., 
p. 230. 
2. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., pp. 205, 
206. 

341. I. Travels through Germany, p. 17. 

2. Cf. Cogan, The Rhine, u, 265. 

3. Russell, Tour in Germany, i, 207, 

342. I. Grand Tour, 11, 49. 

343. I. Travels through Germany, p. 211. Crabb Robinson in his day 

observes: "Everywhere in Germany Enghsh travelers are 
treated as if they were noble, even at the small courts, where 
there is no ambassador. No inquiry is made about birth, title, 
or place. Diary, i, 64, 65. 
2. Grand Tour, 11, 46. 

344. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 48. 

345. I. Letters from an English Traveller, pp. 51, 52. 

2. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., pp. 368, 369. 

3. Ibid., p. 380. 

346. I. Grand Tour, u, 208. 

2. Travels through Germany, p. 70. 

3. View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 367. 

347. I. Travels through Germany, p. 69. 

2. Grand Tour, 11, 204. 

3. Ibid., II, 204. 

4. Ibid., II, 211. 



NOTES 

PAGE 

347" 5- Travels through Germany, p. 67. 
6. Nugent, Grand Tour, n, 203. 

348. I. The Prater was thrown open to the inhabitants of Vienna by 

Kaiser Joseph in 1766. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, li, 360. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 357. 

4. Travels through Germany, p. 41. 

349. I. Grand Tour, il, 351. 

2. In point of morals, the reputation of Munich was far from 
spotless. Cf. Russell, Tour in Germany, 11, 202, note. 

350. I. Grand Tour, u, 299. 
2. Travels, iv, 393. 

351. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, ll, 301. 
2. Crudities, 11, 291. 

352. I. Nugent localises the ancient and widespread myth of the 

ritual murder of a Christian boy by Jews at the neighboring 
Sachsenhausen in 1475. 

2. Grand Tour, 11, 376. 

3. Ibid., II, 336. 

353' I. Nugent regards the cathedral as "perhaps the finest buildmg 
in Europe. The portal is quite magnificent," etc. With 
eighteenth-century inaccuracy he gives the height of the tower 
as five hundred and seventy-four feet! Grand Tour, iv, 207. 
It is hardly necessary to remark that, in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, Strassburg was a French possession, along with the 
whole of Alsace. 
2. It is suggestive that Nugent takes no account of Freiburg in 
his Grand Tour. 

354. I. Cogan, The Rhine, 11, 57. 

355. I. New Voyage to Italy, i, 88. 

2. Grand Tour, 11, 401. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 318. 

4. Crudities, li, 314. 

5. Cf. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 408. 

6. Wright, Some Observations made in Travelling through France, 
Italy, etc., 11, 503. 

356. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 323. 

2. Tour through Germany, pp. II, 12. 

3. Grand Tour, ll, 408. 

357. I, Ibid., II, 15. 

2. Ibid., II, 256. 

3. Ibid., II, 428, 429. 

4. "The cathedral," says Nugent, "is one of the most magnificent 
in the empire." Ibid., ll, 290. 

5. Letters from Italy, li, 236. 

358. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, li, 262. 

2. Baron Riesbeck, Travels through Germany, p. 145. 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 263. 

4. At the lowest, the fee would thus amount to several dollars. 

5. Keysler, Travels, iv, 268. 

6. Starke, Letters from Italy, 11, 236, 237. 

459 



NOTES 

PAGE 

359. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, il, 225. 

2. Ibid., II, 230. 

3. Ibid., II, 226. 

360. I. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 299. 

2. Unless there has been a marvelous change in building materials 
in Berlin since Moore's day, it is to be feared that brick was 
far more common than stone. Ibid., p. 306, 

3. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 187. 

4. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc, etc., 

P- 317- 

361. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 193. 

2. Nugent makes Hamburg the point of departure for the tour 
through Germany, See ibid., 11, Table of Contents. 

362. I. Tour through Germany, p. 353. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, 11, 282. 

3. "From Breslaw to Vienna there is no post wagon, nor in any 
of the hereditary dominions of the house of Austria, but travel- 
lers . . . must either buy a chaise or waggon of their own, or 
hire one at the post-house and take post-horses." Ibid., 11, 
183. 

363. I. Ibid., I, 273. 

2. Moore, View of Society and Manners in France, etc., p. 253. 

CHAPTER XIV 

364. I. A Description of Holland, p. 346. 

365. I. Howell, Familiar Letters, p. 103. 

2. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 51. 

3. Speaking of Dutch toleration, even of Catholics, Nugent says: 
"Indeed there are no rites but the Dutch will tolerate, if they 
are paid for it." Ibid., i, 46. 

4. Ibid., I, 128. 

5. Ibid., I, 128, 129. 

6. Ibid., I, 74. 

366. I. At this place, Bois-le-Duc, Nugent rightly calls attention to 

the cathedral, "One of the most magnificent in the Low Coun- 
tries." Grand Tour, i, 233. 

2. In Nugent's time one could see from the steeple of Gorcum 
church twenty-two walled towns. Ibid., l, 230. 

3. Letters, i, 193. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, 1, 127. 

5. A Description of Holland. 

6. Grand Tour, i, 128. 

367. I, Ibid., I, 125. 

2. A Description of Holland, p. 304. 

3. Ibid., p. 206. 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 105. 

5. Ibid., I, no. 

6. A Description of Holland, p. 159. 

7. Ibid., p. 157. 

368. I. Ibid., p. 203. Cf. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 106. 

460 



NOTES 



PAGE 



368. 2. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 114. 

3. Ibid., I, 118, 119. 

4. Ibid., I, 119. 

5. Ibid., I, 149. Cf. Babeau, Les Voyageurs en France, p. 406. 

369. I. Ibid., I, 95. 

2. Ibid., 1, 68. 

3. Ibid., I, 89. 

4. /Wc?., I, 69. 

5. 7iiJ., I, 71. 

370. I. /6id., I, 81, 82. 

2. /WJ., I, 83. 

3. Cf . Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, il, 336, 

337- 

4. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 191. 

5. A Description of Holland, p. 338. 

371. I. Nugent, Grand Tour, i, 42. 
2, Ibid., I, 58. 

372. I. Tour on the Continent, i, 51. 
2. Chapters VI and IX. 

373. I. Grand Tour, i, 260. 

2. Jesse, George Selwyn and his Contemporaries, 11, 325. 

CHAPTER XV 

377. 1. Breval, Remarks on Several Parts of Europe, i, 119. 

378. I. That is, learning languages and the ways of the world. 

380. I. Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, pp. 359-62. 

2. A View of Paris (i 701), by a Gentleman. 

3. No. 364. Generally attributed to Steele, but, by Dr. Thomas 
Birch, to Philip Yorke. 

381. I. Dunciad, iv, 289-324. 

382. I. Dodsley's Collection of Poems, 11, 88-112. 

384. I. World, No. 18, Chalmers, British Essayists, xxil, 95-101. 
2. Quoted in Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. 

385. I. No. 205 (1756), Chalmers, British Essayists, xxiv, 362. 

386. I. Mackenzie in the Mirror, No. 4, February 6, 1776, Chalmers, 

British Essayists, xxviii, 14-19. 

389. I. Travels, 11, 90-92. 

390. I. World, No. 22, May 31, 1753, Chalmers, British Essayists, 

xxii, 121-24. 
2. No. 29, July 19, 1753, Chalmers, British Essayists, xxii, 158- 
64. 

395. 1. No. 205, Chalmers, British Essayists, xxiv, 358-60. 

396. I. Looker-On, No. 70, Chalmers, British Essayists, xxxvn, 57-62. 

2. No. 97, February 23, 1760. 

3. Chalmers, British Essayists, xxvii, 336. 

4. Mr. Abercromby, in the Mirror, No. 57, August 10, 1779. 

397. I. Chalmers, British Essayists, xxviii, 308-315. 

2. Letters, iv, 178. 

3. See Wright, Caricature History of the Georges, pp. 258-61. 

4. W. Hunt, in Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. 

461 



NOTES 

PAGE 

397. 5. Cited in Oxford Dictionary, s.v. MacasooL 

400. I. Letters, in, 314, 315. 

401. I. De Brosses, Lettres sur I'ltalie, 11, 364. 

402. I. View oj Society and Manners in Prance, etc., pp. 138-40. 
2. Ibid., p. 143. 

403. I. "Until we are five-and-twenty, little or no benefit results to 

the far greater part of those who make what is called the grand 
tour." Andrews, Letters to a Young Gentleman (1784), p. i. 

And another tourist, with an eye to the temptations to im- 
morality, says: "It were to be wished that senseless fathers 
did not expose their sons before the age of reason, to dangers 
from which they cannot eecape but by a miracle." Sherlock, 
New Letters from an English Traveller, p. 146. 

405. I. View of Society and Manners in Italy, iii, 239-49. 

2. V. Knox, "On Foreign Travel," Liberal Education, 11, 297, 302. 

406. I. Letters from Italy, p. 172. 

2. An Essay to Direct and Extend the Inquiries of Patriotic Travel- 
lers, I, 84. 
408. I. Sharp, Letters from Italy, pp. 198-199. 



462 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

With comparatively few exceptions the contemporary materials 
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the student may be referred. The titles of the more important books 
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Bates, E. S. Touring in 1600. A Study in the Development of 
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463 



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464 



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465 



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467 



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468 



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469 



INDEX 



Acquapendente, 89, 310. 

Addison, Joseph, 47, 118, 257, 271, 
280/. 

Aix in Provence, 244. 

Alps (see also Mountains), fright- 
ful, 256/.; Haller's poem on, 259; 
Burnet on, 259; Coxe on Furca 
Pass, 259; Moore on, 260; food 
in traveling over, 425. 

Amboise, 247. 

Amiens, 215. 

Amsterdam, 73, 74, loi, 365 /., 
368/. 

Amusements in Paris, 221 ff.; in 
Venice, 293 #.; in Bologna, 300; 
in Florence, 303 /.; in Rome, 
314/.; in Naples, 330 ff.; in 
Vienna, 345 #•; i" Prague, 357; 
in Amsterdam, 370; in Spa, 373. 

Ancona, 332. 

Anspach, 69. 

Antwerp, 371 /. 

Apennines, 48, 267. 

Aries, 243. 

Assassins, highwaymen, robbers, 

142/- 

Augsburg, 21, 95, 349. 

Austria, possessions of, in Italy, 16, 
17, 24; power of, 24, 25; variety 
of peoples in, 25; mediaevalism 
in, 25; backward condition of, 
26; power of, in the Netherlands, 
26, 27; roads in, 51; inns, 97, 98, 
100; custom houses, 164. 

Austrian Succession, War of the, 
27. 

Avignon, 242. 

Bagehot, Walter, 124. 

Baggage, 6y ff.; confiscated, 157; 
examination of, 158 ff.; fees to 
porters for carrying, 159; exami- 
nation in Austria, 164; transport 
from Paris to Lyons, 239; for 



travel in Spain, 253; examina- 
tion of, at Acquapendente, 310; 
at Rome, 313; at Siena, 453; 
liable to be stolen in Italy, 456. 
See also Custom houses. 

Balance of Power, 6. 

Banks, letters of credit and ex- 
change, 171 ff-, 435- 

Baretti, Joseph, 61, 64, 86, 87, 93, 
94, 103, 129, 266, 273, 276/., 295, 
315. 332, 420, 451- 

Basel, 261. 

Beds and bedding, 77, 80, 81, 85 /., 
422, 424/., 446. 

Beggars, 199 ff., 212, 286, 290 /., 
314, 316, 328/., 356, 446. 

Berchtold, Count Leopold, advice 
of, on inns, 77; on value of travel, 
406. 

Beef, in Italy, 93. 

Berlin, 69, 360^. 

Bern, 261. 

Bills of exchange, 172. 

Bills of health, 152^., 433. 

Birkbeck, Morris, 31, 205. 

Blois, 247. 

Bologna, 91, 299. 

Bonn, 354. 

Bordeaux, 251 f. 

Boulogne, 29, 31. 

Bourgoanne Jean Frangois, Baron 
de, on travel in Spain, 252 /., 
444. 

Brandenburg, electorate of, 21, 22, 
24. 

Brenta, passage of the, 35, 36. 

Breval, John, 44, 50, 107, 120, 137, 
243, 247, 248, 299, 302, 309 /., 
324, 377, 448. 

Brigands, in Naples, 146 /., 431; 
on Vesuvius, 147, 413; in Sicily, 

275- 
Brighton, 29. 
Brittany, 25. 



471 



INDEX 



Bromley, William, no, 280. 
Browne, Dr. Edward, 338. 
Bruges, loi, 372. 
Brussels, 100, loi, 372. 
Burnet, Gilbert, 87, 92, 259, 288, 

296, 446. 
Burney, Charles, 30. 
Burns, Robert, on the value of 

travel in Europe, 399. 
Butter, in Italy, 93, 94. 
Byron, Lord, in Venice, 295; in 

Pisa, 308; in Ravenna, 333; in 

Rome, 454. 

Calais, 29-31, 53, 57 #., 75, 78/., 
150, 158/., 189, 214/.; the grand 
and the little tours through 
France from, 245 ff. 

Cannes, 244. 

Capua, 91, 326, 419, 456. 

Carcassonne, 248. 

Carlisle, Earl of, 116, 141, 202, 267, 
285,323,329, 373, 447; Dowager 
Countess of, 211, 242. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 340. 

Carr, John, 55, 234, 415. 

Carriages {see also Post-chaise), in 
France, 52-61; in Italy, 61-68; 
in Germany, 68-72; in the Low 
Countries, 72-74; in Switzer- 
land, 263 jf.; notes on, 416 f., 
420, 441, 447, 450, 458, 460. 

Caserta, 326. 

Cassel, 69. 

Chilons, inn at, 79. 

Chambery, 63, 241, 283. 

Chamonix, 260. 

Channel, English, crossing the, 
29/., 412/. 

Chantilly, Gothic castle at, 139, 
215. 

Cherbourg, 191. 

Chesterfield, Lord, on educating a 
son and daughter abroad, 382. 

Cities, to be visited, in France, 214 
ff., 2^iff.\ in Switzerland, 261; in 
Italy, 272 ff.; in Germany, 337 
ff.; on the Rhine, 352^.; in the 
Low Countries., 366 jf. 

Clenche, John, on the Grande Char- 
treuse, 241; on Amboise, 247; on 



Carcassonne, 248; on Pisa, 308; 
on French food, 423. 

Clermont-Ferrand, 213. 

Clothing, 203 ff. ; costumes, 225 ff. 
See also Fashions. 

Coblenz, 354. 

Cologne, 21,38, 355/. 

Compostella, pilgrimages to, I. 

Contemporary writers, on the value 
of the grand tour, 375 Jf., 462. 

Continent, routes to, 29; lack of 
comfort on the, 75-78; increase 
of interest in, 103. 

Cork and Orrery, Earl of, 30, 57, 
125, 283, 308. 

Coryate, Thomas, crossing Eng- 
lish Channel, 30; on the Rhine, 
38; at Calais, 150; on bills of 
health in Italy, 154; on Venice, 
295 /.; on Frankfort, 351; on 
Cologne, 355; notes from, 416, 

423. 434- 

Cost, of passage to the Continent, 
29, 30; of carriages, 56-61, 63, 65, 
66, 72, 73, 74; of inns, 76, 79, 80, 
84; of crossing the English Chan- 
nel, 177; of posting — in France, 
178 /.; in Italy, 180 /.; in Ger- 
many, 182; in Holland, 183; of 
hotels, 183 ff.', of trip to Ver- 
sailles, 237; of traveling in 
Germany, 336; of living in Ger- 
many, 197/.; of food and lodg- 
ing, 184 ff. — in Switzerland, 
258; cheap in Milan, 288; inex- 
pensive in Florence, 301 ; ditto 
in Lucca, 309; ditto in Siena, 
309; high in Leipsic, 359; low in 
Liege, 373; notes on cost of jour- 
neys, 414, 417, 420, 424, 436; 
on cost of food, 437/. 

Cowper, Lord, on value of travel, 
384. 398. 

Coxe, Archdeacon, in Switzerland, 
258/.; 445/. 

Cremona, 298. 

Culture, in Germany, 342; in Ber- 
lin, 361; in Holland, 370, 

Custom houses, 156 ff., 162 /., 

164 /•, 313. 433. 434- 
Cuxhaven, 29, 39. 



472 



INDEX 



Danube, travel on, 39. 

De Brosses, Charles, 37,48, 85,91; 

on Milan, 289; on Venice, 296; 

on Siena, 310; on Rome, 315; on 

value of grand tour, 400 /. 
Delft, 367. 
Denmark, 27. 
Dieppe, 29, 
Dijon, 211, 239. 
Dilettanti Club, 105. 
Diligence. See Carriages. 
Doge's Palace {see also Venice), 

filthy, 155. 
Dover, 29, 30, 165, 412. 
Dresden, 156, 357 #. 
Dupaty, Charles, 108, 109, 245, 

286, 329, 331. 
Diisseldorf, food at, 100, gallery 

at, 356. 
Dutch Republic, 26, 27. 

Education of Englishmen, 9, 10, 
113/., 119. 

Educational value of the grand 
tour, 375 ff. 

Eighteenth century, difficulty of 
realizing conditions in, 7; a time 
of depression in poetry, art, and 
architecture, 8; roads in, 43; 
wars of, 103; Italy degenerate 
in, 270; Rome a survival in, 317. 

Elbe, travel on the, 38, 39. 

Elizabeth, travel in time of, i, 2. 

England, characteristics of, in 
eighteenth century, 8-10; popu- 
lation, 9; compared with France, 
10, 11; relations with Holland, 
27; roads in, 43, 44; inns in, 78, 
81, 82, 88. 

English Channel, crossing the, 29- 

English literature, popular in 
France, 229; in Germany, 341. 

Englishmen, education of, 9, 10; 
types of tourists, 104 ff. ; prep- 
aration for travel, 113 ff.; dis- 
like of foreigners, 124 /.; un- 
sociable when traveling, 130^.; 
associate with their countrymen, 
134; popular in France, 210; 
follow beaten tracks in Italy, 273 ; 



as traders at Leghorn, 307; in 
crowds at Rome, 311 /,; must be 
prudent in speech in Rome, 318; 
welcome in Germany, 343; have 
churches in Holland, 365; dis- 
like of, 428, 429. 

Essex, James, 31, 164. 

Europe, character of population, 
5.6. 

Eustace, John Chetwode, 75, 125, 
226, 271, 282, 297, 423. 

Evelyn, John, 106, no, 137, 151, 
172, 240, 247, 289, 292 ff., 296, 
308, 319, 326, 329, 441. 

Expense of travel {see also Cost), 
177 #• 

Fashions, {see also Clothing) 
French, followed in Italy, 106, 
450; in Vienna, 345 /.; Vene- 
tian at Nuremberg, 350; at 
The Hague, 367; at Leyden 
and Utrecht, 370; odd in Ger- 
many, 458; English, imitated in 
France, 227, 442. 

Felucca, 33. 

Ferrara, 2g8ff. 

Ferrier, Major, 31. 

Ferries, in Italy, 37. 

Firearms {see also Weapons), given 
up at city gates, 144; for travel 
in Spain, 253. 

Florence, 65, 71, y2, 85, 89, 90, 91, 
129, 197, 198, 300 #., 452. 

Foote, Samuel, The Capuchin, 187; 
The Englishman in Paris, 385; 
The Englishman Returned from 
Paris, 385. 

Fox, Charles James, 116, 139, 331, 

373- 397- 
France, 10-15; size of, 10; com- 
pared with England, 10, 11 ; gov- 
ernment of, 11; church of, 12; 
nobility of, 12, 13; third estate, 
13, 14; towns of, 14; relation to 
Italy, 16; water travel in, 32, 33; 
roads in, 44, 45; carriages in, 
52-61; inns in, 78-84, 422; beg- 
gars in, 200; choice of a route in, 
208 ff. ; English tourists popular 
in, 209; poverty in, 212; "le 



473 



INDEX 



grand et le petit tour de," 246; 

population of, 411; exceptions 

to laws in, 411; taxes uneven, in, 

411. 
Francis I, 24. 
Frankfort-on-the-Main, 21, 73, 75, 

95.351/. 

Frascati, 93. 

Frederick the Great, 24. 

French, language, knowledge of, 
115 /.; in Lucca, no; in Ger- 
many, 340/.; in Vienna, 345; in 
Mainz, 354; in Berlin, 361. 

Frenchmen, lacking in delicacy 
and modesty, 229, 230; lack of 
cleanliness, 231; hospitality of, 
232; insincerity of, 234; courtesy 
of, 235; silence in company and 
at table d'hote, 236. 

French Revolution, effect of, 6; 
signs of, 15; result of, in Italy, 18. 

Gambling, 202 /., 233, 234, 249, 

291.331.367,443- 

Gates of city closed at night, 156, 
262, 350, 433. 

Geneva, 261 /., 447. 

Genoa, 18, 33/., 46, 47. 89. 285/. 

Gentleman's Guide, The, 83, 239, 
244/., 249/., 417, 436, 437, 440. 

German Empire, 22-24. 

German language, English igno- 
rance of, 117/., 340 /. 

Germany, 21-26; Brandenburg, 
21; meaning of, in eighteenth 
century, 21; rank in Middle 
Ages, 21; lack of unity, 2i; wars 
in, 22; serfdom in, 22, 23; par- 
ticularism in, 23; relative posi- 
tion of, 24; water travel in, 37- 
39; roads in, 49-51; carriages in, 
68-72; backward condition of, 
69,337; i^'f^s in, 95-100; custom 
houses in, 162 /.; coins of, 174; 
cost of transportation in, 182; 
cost of living in, 197 /.; travel 
in, 335/-; cities in, 338/-; trav- 
elers well treated in, 458. 

Goethe, 67, 94, 316, 327, 351, 359/-, 
448, 452. 

Goldoni, Carlo, 292. 



Gothic architecture, lack of appre- 
ciation of, 137 #.; Milan Cathe- 
dral, 288, 296; praise of Cathe- 
dral at Siena, 309; notes on, 430. 

Gottingen, 70. 

Government, type of, in eighteenth 
century, 5, 6. 

Grande Chartreuse, 241. 

Grand tour, increasing popularity 
of the, 2; meaning of, 3, 5; coun- 
tries visited on the, 3; choice of 
routes, 207 ff.; contemporary 
writers on, 375 ff. 

Gray, Thomas, 58, 115, 221, 240/., 
250, 256/., 265, 306, 418. 

Grenoble, 240/. 

Guidebooks, defects of, 142; Piga- 
niol de la Force, Nouveau Voyage 
en France, 249; The Traveller's 
Guide through Switzerland, 261; 
local guide-books at Rome, 324. 
See also The Gentleman' s Guide. 

Guides, professional, 323. 

Hague, The, 73, 74, 100, 367/. 

Halberstadt, 95. 

Hamburg, 21, 61, 72, 96, 361 /. 

Hamilton, Sir William, at Naples, 
330. 

Hapsburg, House of, 24. 

Hazlitt, William, 131, 179, 181,220, 
222, 230, 274, 317, 427, 437, 439. 

Holland {see also Netherlands), 26, 
27; water travel in, 42; land 
travel in, 72-74; inns in, loo- 
02; custom houses in, 164; cost 
of travel in, 183; in general, 364 
ff.; Catholics tolerated in, 460. 

Hood, Thomas, 98. 

Hotels {see also Inns), cost of living 
at, 183 ff.\ unscrupulous land- 
lords, 190 #. 

Houghton, Lord, 118. 

Hunt, Leigh, 179, 192, 308. 

Hyeres, 244. 

Illiteracy, in Naples, 116. 

Immorality, marked at Venice, 
294; at Florence, 304; in Hol- 
land, 368 /.; less at Rome, 454; 
at Munich, 459. 



474 



INDEX 



Inns, in France, 78-84; in Italy, 
84-95, 275, 424; in Sicily, 90; in 
Germany, 95-100; in the Low 
Countries, 100-02; lack of con- 
veniences at, 80, 81, 85 ff., 423- 
425; in Spain, 252; in Switzer- 
land, 258 Jf., 445; between Siena 
and Rome, 310; at Rome, 313 /., 
455; at Naples, 328, 439; at Lo- 
retto, 332; at Vienna, 347; at 
Dresden, 358; at Scheveningen, 
368; at Brussels, 372; at Liege, 
373; notes on, English, 421; at 
Paris, 422; in Provence, 422; at 
Viareggio, 423; at Lerici, 423; at 
Toulouse, 436; at Avignon, 437; 
charges at, in France, 437. 

Innsbruck, 344. 

Italian language, knowledge of, 
116/. 

Italian society, difficulty of know- 
ing, 130. 

Italy, 15-21; decline of, 15, 16; 
relation of France, Spain, and 
Austria to, 16; partition of, 16, 
17; mutual dislike of peoples in, 
18; Austrian rule in, 19, 24; 
blood feud in, 19; poverty of, 
19, 20; water travel in, 33-37; 
roads in, 46-49; carriages in, 61- 
68; inns in, 84-95, 272, 424; 
robbers and assassins in, 147^.; 
passports and bills of health, 
152 Jf.; value of its coins, 175/.; 
beggars in, 200 #., 412; its fas- 
cination, 269; its degeneracy, 
270; its popularity, 271; favorite 
cities in, 272; routes in, 272; lack 
of sanitation in, 294; population 
of, 412; modes of travel in, 419/.; 
use of buffaloes and oxen in, 
419; hospitality in, 423; kinds of 
money in, 435; insect pests in, 
451; taxation in, 452. 

Jews, in Frankfort, 352 ; in Cologne, 
355/-; in Sachsenhausen, 459. 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, in The Idler, 
on value of travel, 396. 

Joseph II, 24, 25. 

Karlsruhe, 69. 



Keysler, John George, 66, 89, 147, 
234. 257 ff., 262, 281, 292, 3or, 
309 /.. 332, 350, 358, 424. 445. 
447.452,455/. 

Knight, Lady, 184, 189, 195/., 211, 
229, 249, 311. 

Knox, Vicesimus, 119, 405, 428. 

Lakes, Italian, 277, 448. 

Languedoc canal, 32. 

Leghorn, 65, 307. 

Leipsic, 69, 359. 

Letters of introduction, 129.' 

Leyden, 369. 

Liege, 373. 

Linolett, Dr. Thomas, 244. 

Lisbon, 28. 

Locke, John, 120, 121, 378. 

Loire, cities of the, 88; castles in 

valley of, 247 ff. 
London, population of, 9; mud in, 

44; Paris compared with, 217, 

220. 
Loretto, 86, 90, 332, 
Louis XIV, II. 
Low Countries. See Netherlands, 

and Holland. 
Liibeck, 21. 
Lucca, 18, 65, 144, 152, 155, 257. 

308/. 
Lyons, 32, 33, 63, 154, 160, 179, 

238/. 

Mainz, 21, 354. 

Mann, Horace, 117, 122, 301. 

Mannheim, 353. 

Mantua, 17, 24. 

Maria Theresa, 17, 24, 25. 

Marseilles, 62, 244. 

Mediterranean Sea, voyage on, 
143/. 

Milan, 17, 18, 19, 24, 85, 161, 201, 
287 Jf. 

Misson, Francis, 50, 64 jf., 70, 120, 
138, 147, 148, 174, 186, 204, 256, 
271, 275, 278, 284, 289, 299, 304, 
322,332,355,421,436,448. 

Modena, 18, 68, 298. 

Monaco, 245. 

Money, various kinds of, and 
values, 173/.. 435- 



475 



INDEX 



Monreale, mosaics and cloisters 
at, 137, 275. 

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 
39. 45. 97. 105. 126, 133, 168, 179, 
183 /., 188, 211 /., 232 /., 267, 
292, 311. 337. 366,418, 451. 

Mont Cenis, 62, 265/., 447. 

Monte Cassino, 66. 

Montilimart, inn at, 80. 

Montpellier, 84, 250. 

Moore, Dr. John, 64, 85, 97, 108, 
123, 125, 131 /., 138, 213, 233, 
235, 240, 246, 260, 297, 299, 303, 
319, 320, 326/., 332/., 345 /•. 
360/., 401/., 411. 

Moulins, inns at, 80. 

Mountains (see also Alps and Apen- 
nines), horrible, 255 /.; com- 
pared to hell, 445; climbing, 263 
ff., 445; transportation in chairs, 
265; Swiss passes, 265^.; Pyre- 
nees, 445. 

Munich, 95. 348/-. 459- 

Nantes, inn at, 79. 

Naples, Kingdom of, 17, 18, 20, 21; 
roads in, 48; assassins in, 146/. 

Naples, city of, water trip to, 34; 
land journey from Rome to, 65, 
66; inns at, 85, 90-92; hotel 
charges at, 196; region about, 275, 
326 #. 

Netherlands, 24-27; water travel 
in, 39-42; roads in, 51; carriages 
in, 72-74; inns in, 100-02; pass- 
ports needed in, 151; cost of liv- 
ing in, 199; in general, 3,64 ff. 

Nice, 62, 245. 

Nimes, 81, 82, 211, 242, 444. 

Northall, John, 33, 137, 271, 314, 
318, 323, 327, 455. 

Nugent, Thomas, passim. 

Nuremberg, 21, 72, 95, 349 #. 

Opera, in Paris, 223; in Venice, 
293; in Bologna, 300; in Flor- 
ence, 305, 453; in Vienna, 346; 
in Munich, 349. 

Oporto, 28. 

Orange, 242. 

Orleans, 247. 



Ostend, 164. 

Oxford Magazine, on the value of 
travel, 397/. 

Padua, 94, 290. 

Psestum, 329. 

Palatinate, 22, 163, 353. 

Palermo, 146. 

Palestrina, 93. 

Palgrave, Francis, on the Alps, 257. 

Paris, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 82, 84. 
205, 214/., 238, 245/.; popula- 
tion of, 216, 440; gates, 433; 
Almanack Parisien, 440. 

Parma, 17, 68, 298. 

Passports, 150/., 432, 456. 

Pavia, 193. 

Perugia, 276. 

Piacenza, 17, 298. 

Piazza di Spagna, 91, 454. 

Piedmont, 18; roads in, 46, 161. 

Piozzi, Mrs. Hester Lynch, 53, 
240, 286, 289, 299. 

Pirates, 34, 143/., 430, 431. 

Pisa, 65, 307. 

Pistoia, 65, 109, no, 160. 

Po, Valley of the, 298; cable ferry 
across river, 414. 

Poitiers, 251. 

Poland, 23, 24, 98. 

Pompeii, 329, 457. 

Pope, the, at Rome 319, 392. 

Pope, Alexander, on the value of 
the grand tour, in Dunciad, 381. 

Portugal, relation of England to, 
28; commerce with, 28; domi- 
nant English interests in, 28. 

Postal facilities, 168, 169. 

Post-chaise (see also Carriages), 
Gray's, 58/.; Sterne's, 249; in 
Spain, 253; in Switzerland, 263 /. 

Potatoes in Italy, 94. 

Prague, food at, 100, 356/. 

Protestants, English, in, 112, 

317/- 
Prussia, rise of, 21, 24. 

Ratisbon (Regensburg), 72. 
Ravenna, 155, 333. 
Ray, John, 120, 154, 194, 314 ff-, 
317. 333- 



476 



INDEX 



Renaissance, 104. 

Rheims, 84, 138, 250. 

Rhine, travel on the, 37, 38; tolls, 
163; cities on, to be visited, 352. 

Rhine Fall, Coxe on the, 260. 

Rhone, travel on the, 32, 33, 238, 
239; valley towns of, 86; from 
Lyons to the sea, 241 ff. 

Riesbeck, Baron, on German inns, 
96; on Germany, 343; on Vienna, 
345. 347/-; on Cologne, 355. 

Riviera, 244, 245. 

Roads, in Austria, 26; in Spain, 27, 
254; in Portugal, 28; Roman, 43; 
in the eighteenth century, 43; 
in England, 43; in France, 44, 
45. 251, 253; in Italy, 46-49, 
257; in Sicily, 49; in Germany, 
49-51 ; in the Low Countries, 51 ; 
in Switzerland, 262, 447; in Tus- 
cany, 412; from Nice to Genoa, 
413; from Paris to Orleans, 415; 
from Coblenz to Ems, 415 /.; 
from Cassel to Munden, 416. 

Roman roads, 43. 

Rome, poverty of, 20; water jour- 
ney from, to Naples, 34; road 
from Siena to, 48; land journey 
from, to Naples, 65, 66; inns at, 
85. 91. 93; rapid sight-seeing at, 
108; custom house at, 161; hotel 
charges at, 195; beggars at, 201; 
English at, 311 #.; food bad be- 
tween Rome and Naples, 425; 
list of sights, 456. 

Rotterdam, loi, 156, 366. 

Rouen, 215. 

Routes, from Rome to Naples, 34, 
65. 325; to Italy from France, 
87; to Bordeaux and Madrid, 
89 Jf.; from Paris to Lyons, 238; 
from Lyons to Italy, 238, 239; 
from Calais through France, 
246-54; from Paris to Spain, 
250 /.; through Switzerland, 
265; in Italy, 274/., 278/., 298; 
through Germany to Italy, 281/.; 
from Rome to Eastern Italy, 
332 ff. ; from Italy through Ger- 
many, 336; through Bohemia, 
356; to Amsterdam, 357; from 



Hamburg to Vienna and to the 
Baltic, 362; in Holland, 366; 
notes on, in Italy, 449-50. 

St. Mark's church, Venice, 295/. 

St. Mark's Place, Venice, 293^. 

Salzburg, 348. 

San Marino, 18, 333, 448. 

San Remo, 88. 

Saone, journey on, 417. 

Sardinia, 17, 18. 

Savoy, 17, 18. 

Scheveningen, 368. 

Seine, travel on the, 32. 

Selwyn, George, 116. 

Seven Years' War, 22, 103. 

Sharp, Dr. Samuel, 85-87, 1 11, 
141, 258, 265 /., 284, 291, 301 /., 
311, 316 J., 329/-, 406 #. 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 308. 

Sicily, 17, 20, 49, 275. 

Siena, 109, 137, 138, 309, 453. 

Simplon, 258. 

Sixteenth-century travel, i, 2. 

Smith, James Edward, 65, 67, 88, 
160/., 174, 182, 192/., 210, 229, 
245, 285, 296, 372, 417. 

Smollett, Tobias, 29, 31, 33, 54, 
58, 60, 63, 82, 88-90, 112, 127, 
160, 178, 180, 183 /., 190, 193, 
205, 224 /., 230, 234, 243, 245, 
250, 264, 267, 276, 314, 322, 388 
/., 417, 418, 441. 

Soave, Francesco, 118. 

Social life, in Paris, 227 ff.; in 
Switzerland, 261 /.; in Turin, 
285; in Genoa, 286, 287; in 
Milan, 288; in Venice, 292 ff., 
451 ; in Florence, 303/.; in Rome, 
312^.; in Naples, 329^.; in Ger- 
many, 335 /., 343; in Vienna, 
345 /.; in Nuremberg, 350; in 
Holland, 365/.; in Belgium, 372. 

Society on the Continent, value of 

introductions to, 128 ff. 
Sorrento, 94. 

Souvenirs of the journey, 204. 
Spa, 373. 

Spain, power of, in Italy, 16, 17; 
in the Netherlands, 27; deca- 
dence of, 27, 28; routes in, 89; 



477 



INDEX 



travel in, 89 ff.\ ignorance of 

French language in, 427. 
Spanish Succession, War of, 17, 

22, 27, 103. 
Spectator, The, no, 380/. 
Spin-house, for lewd women, at 

The Hague, 368; at Amsterdam, 

369. 

Sports and recreations. See Amuse- 
ments. 

Starke, Mariana, 35, 39, 51, 62, 69, 
71. 78, 93, 96, 100, 163, 177, 181, 
195 /•. 297, 301, 308, 316, 326, 
329, 357, 422, 425 /•- 435, 438, 
448, 453, 456. 

States of the Church, 18, 176, 180, 
196. 

Steele, Richard, no. 

Stephen, Leslie, 116, 117, 340. 

Sterne, Laurence, 77, 172, 178, 
184, 248/., 386 #. 

Strassburg, 139, 235, 459. 

Streets, generally unlighted, 145 
ff.', in Paris, 218-22; in Lyons, 
240; in Genoa, 286; in Padua, 
290; in Venice, .291, 294; in 
Ferrara, 299; in Pisa, 308; in 
Rome, 313, 316; in Naples, 327, 
328; in Germany, 337, 339; in 
Vienna, 347; in Rhine cities, 353; 
in Cologne, 355; in Dresden, 
357; in BerHn, 360; in Holland, 
365; in Amsterdam, 366, 369; 
in Turin, 449; in Florence, 452. 

Switzerland, 26, 255 /.; travel in, 
263 ff.; the "ramassang," 266; 
notes on, 445 ff. 

Taylor, Bayard, 54, 64, 65, 197/. 

Theaters, in Paris, 223/.; in Strass- 
burg, 235; in Venice, 293; in 
Bologna, 300; in Vienna, 346; in 
Hamburg, 362. 

Thirty Years' War, 22, 24. 

Tivoli, 94. 

Toulon, 244. 

Tooke, Home, 120. 

Toulon, 62. 

Toulouse, 84, 249. 

Tourists, type of, 3; average, 15; 
number of English, 104; number 



of women, 105; idle, 105, 106; 
hasty, 106, 107, 108; inatten- 
tive, 108-10; mediocre, 108-11; 
Protestantism, 111-12; prepara- 
tion, 113 ff.', acquaintance of, 
with foreign languages, 115 ff.; 
odd, 127; silent, 127, 131, 132; 
reception of, in society, 128 /.; 
estimate by, of architecture, 
135 #•; extravagance of, 1S6 ff.; 
necessity of servants and car- 
riages for, 202, 219; gambling, 
203; wardrobe of, 203; typical 
tour in France and Spain for, 
207 ff. ; clothing to be taken by, 
226; reception of, in French 
society, 231 ff.; enthusiasm of, 
over Italy, 271; advised to carry 
wine and water from Siena to 
Rome, 310; enjoyment by, of 
Rome, 317/., 454; in Naples, 331, 
456; lack of knowledge of Ger- 
man, 340. 

Tours, 84, 247. 

Travel, causes of increasing in- 
terest in, 2; a social obligation, 
10; annoyances of, 140; danger- 
ous sea voyages, 143 ff.; neces- 
sity of identification papers, 
passports, etc., 150 ff.; lack of 
comforts in, 16$ ff.; cost of, 
170 /.; difficulties of, in Spain 
and Portugal, 252; slowness of, 
426. 

Traveling servant, 123/. 

Treck-scoot, 40, 41. 

Treviso, 94. 

Turin, 63, 156, 194, 284, 447, 449. 

Tuscany {see also Florence), 17-19, 
24; roads in, 47; poverty in, 412. 

Tutor, traveling, 118 ff. See also 
Contemporary writers on grand 
tour. 

Tutorial system of education, 4, 
ii8jf., 428. 

Utrecht, Treaty of, 17, 27, 370. 

Vallombrosa, 306. 
Venice, 18, 85, 91, 92, 161, 175, 180, 
193,290/. 



478 



INDEX 



Verona, 289. 

Versailles, 11, 13, 24, 61, 69, 180, 

237- 
Vesuvius, 147, 329. 
Vetturino system, 57, 64-67, 71, 

72. 
Vicenza, 94, 106, 136, 273, 289. 
Vienna, Peace of, 17; city of, 69; 

journey from Hamburg to, 72; 

inns at, 95, 96; cost of living at, 

198; in general, 345/- 
Vienne, 241. 
Viterbo, 65. 
Voltaire, on travel in Spain, 252/.; 

on roads in Germany, etc., 416. 
Volterra, 448. 

Walpole, Horace, 82, 109, 116, 117, 
122, 126, 129, 165, 168, 212, 218, 
220, 227, 228, 231, 233, 235, 237, 
274, 284, 302/., 397.400. 

Weapons, pistols, swords {see also 
Firearms), 144, 152, 194. 



West, Gilbert, The Abuse of Travel- 
ling, 382. 

Westphalia, poverty of, 96, 97, 
99. 

Woman's position, in Genoa, 287; 
in Venice, 295; in Florence, 
304/.; in Lucca, 309; in Rome, 
314; in Naples, 331 ; in Germany, 
338 /.; in Nuremberg, 350; in 
Cologne, 356; in the Nether- 
lands, 364. 

World, The, estimates of the value 
of the grand tour to young people, 
385,389/. 

Young, Arthur, 15, 31, 54, 57, 62. 
79, 80/., 82, 83, loi, 191, 210, 
213, 218, 226, 236, 243, 244, 245, 
265, 421. 

Ypres, loi, 373. 

Zermatt, 258. 
Zurich, 261. 



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